Oh Toddler

First off, I don't have a lot of pictures to share right now because all recent ones are candidates for our Christmas card. I did take a few of Mara, though, which shows how I bribed her to take the family photos. Yes, I had to bribe because our Saturday photo session didn't turn out so well and we had to reshoot on Sunday.

 You want me to smile?

 Uh huh... well, you're gonna have to pay up.

 Cooperation!

For those of you I haven't told... we heard Mara banging around in her room after we put her to bed last night. I walk in and she's out of bed, has her toothbrush and yummy flavored toothpaste out and claims she's brushing her teeth (which we had already done). We have caught her sucking the toothpaste tube before... so I take that away, put her back to bed and return to what I was doing. A little while later... she's knocking on the door to come out... and when I open it, I've got a slick toddler staring at me. And when I say slick, I mean COVERED in Vaseline!!! We keep a tub of Vaseline in her room because she tends to get chapped cheeks and Z or I dab a miniscule amount on them for relief... but apparently leaving the tub there was a mistake. She basically has a Vaseline BEARD, ear to ear, mouth, chin, nose, hands, arms. She SHONE. I had to call Z to come see and I did my best to wipe her down with a wet washcloth. Poor kid had faceprints in her pillow and on some of her stuffed animals. When we asked her why she did that, she stone faced told us "my face hurt, and now it doesn't." Needless to say, the tub of Vaseline was promptly removed and her room investigated for any other liquids/creams/ink/anything-that-could-make-a-mess.

Our other, uh, incident, occurred last night after Z finished bathing her - she was spic and span clean and I was petting Arson at the top of the stairs, checking his legs because he's been chewing them and checking his belly for any irritation. Mara stoops down and is talking to him and proceeds to poke his penis! Arson's eyes popped out of his head like WHAT THE HECK? I told Mara that was yucky and she needed to go wash her finger immediately! I told her we don't touch that, and Z was saying "we don't touch that on anybody but ourselves, and even then only when wiping." She looked utterly confused as Z sanitized her hand and she stated, "but I don't have a penis." Sigh. You're right honey, I told her. Girls have vaginas. "Yup, bahginas. Girls have bahginas" she said. Then she proceeded to list who in the family has what.