"I Told You So!" and "I Do It Myself"

As the mother of two wonderful girls, I marvel at their abilities. Every time I turn around, one or both of them is doing something that either sends my blood pressure through the roof or dissolves me to a puddle on the floor. Here are examples of both instances that happened within about 10 minutes of each other.

Dee Dee, my Mother, is coming into town this evening for a visit. If you know Mother, then you know that she usually spend more time cleaning my house when she is here than she does actually enjoying her time with her granddaughters. Anyway, I'm picking up the books in Emily's room, and the next thing I heard was the patter of little bare feet in the kitchen. I step out of Emily's room and immediately fly into panic mode as I see that the gate to the stairs is wide-the-F&$# OPEN!!!!! In the .00000001 seconds it took me to get down the 15 steps, Jillian comes around the corner of the dining room with the "I'm so proud or myself" look on her face. The little monkey had gone down the steps BY HERSELF!!!!! I remember the first time that Emily went down the stairs by herself - Adam at the bottom of the stairs, and me about a step behind. After I got over the shock, I was in a puddle on the floor. My baby isn't a baby anymore.

On the other hand, there is Emily. She's too smart for her own good sometimes, but other times, I don't think she has a lick of sense in her head. For lunch today, she went into the garage to get a diet orange soda out of Adam's "beer fridge". She brought me the can and told me that "Daddy lets me drink it with a straw all by myself". OK, I thought, maybe she's big enough to not make a mess. She took it to the table with the requisite "Mommy's upon pain of death" speech. No sooner did I turn my back when I hear "Mommy, I need a towel". I think my BP shot up about 50 points.

I gave up alcohol and chocolate for Lent this year. Damned if I'll give up either of them again! I'll be glad when Sunday gets here. After today, I really need a drink.