The Great Cupcake Massacre

We put in another longish day today. This latest cold snap is getting pretty rough. I'm running out of things (that aren't horribly messy) for Cailin to do.

The dishwasher obsession is getting old. Cailin opens the door, climbs in, unloads the dishes (clean or dirty) and plays with the toaster oven on the counter. I wasn't at all surprised the other day to see she had unloaded the dirty dishes from the dishwasher and thoughtfully piled them onto the bathtub mat. Down to the last spoon. Bailey was ecstatic of course, and more than helpful in licking the dishes clean on the bathroom floor. This means that the dishwasher has to stay empty during the day - meaning the dishes pile up in the sink and on the counter until they can be safely washed at bedtime. Her antics also dictate that I must remember to unplug the toaster oven after breakfast so she can safely touch it.

When she's not messing around with the dishwasher, she's building a ladder out of toys or using her chair to repeatedly push the TV power button. On and off. On and off.

When she's not doing that, she's underfoot, beating the dog, playing in the toilet, unloading kitchen cupboards onto the floor, throwing toys around... and did I mention beating the dog? She is such a busy kid it makes my head spin. No sooner have I cleaned up her latest debacle, she is knee deep into her next one.

In so many words: we've completely had it. Rather, mommy has completely had it. I long to open the back door and as GG would say, "throw the bum out". With Bailey right behind of course.

Meals for example, would be a lot easier outside. Inside, a meal isn't truly a good meal unless it has been played with, art-ified and used to decorate the table, chair, underside of the table, floor and any other surface within reach in the dining room. Bonus points for dropping food on Bailey's back where she can't get it off by herself.

Cailin has informed me that she will be following the Atkin's Diet until further notice - but hold the veggies. Meat and fruit (with some dairy and not many grains) is all this kid will eat lately. For dinner all I could get her to eat was steak. I hid a brown bean in her pile of steak pieces hoping it would go down the hatch. Not so much. Eagle-eye Magee there found it immediately and tossed it to the dog. Same with the green beans. Also? Cailin managed to get a piece of steak to stick to the underside of the table. That takes a lot of talent - and approximately half a second for Bailey to find and devour.

After she'd had her fill of meat (NO BEANS EVAH!) she demanded dessert. We've had cupcakes for dessert for a few days now and they are getting, shall we say, a tad dry? I plopped one in front of Cailin and turned to get myself one. When I came back to the table, my jaw hit the floor.

It looked like a dozen cupcakes had met their cruel fate on my dining room table. There were sticky, icing-y crumbs everywhere; on the table, up the walls, on the underside of the table, on the dog and all over the floor. I had no idea one single cupcake held that many crumbs within its sweet deliciousness. Cailin had a perfect white Santa beard and moustache of icing and was busy licking icing off her fingertips. "Peese!" she demanded another one.

Obviously that first cupcake spontaneously combusted and she had gotten to eat very little of it. At least, I imagined she ate very little of it since there wouldn't have been much left over after most of it exploded onto the floor.

I put another cuppity cake in front of her and watched with scientific interest. Sure enough, when she picked it up, it fell completely to pieces except for the top cap part with the icing. Which she jammed into her face and sucked the icing off like a wee sugar craving vampire. Well, she comes by it honestly; I've been known to dive face-first into candy bags myself.

Of course, the magic self imploding cupcake had a generous boost of toddler help in bursting apart and getting spread to various surfaces within reaching distance. The rest fell like confetti to the floor - much to Bailey's delight. Those sticky icing-y hands? Smeared icing as far and fast as they could reach.

As I surveyed the damage to my dining room and eyeballed my icing covered dynamo, I realized there was only one option for my little destroyer of cupcakes. A very early bath. As for the icing/cupcake corpse on the table, I strategically pulled out a chair from the table and walked away and let nature (Bailey) do the rest. That's why God invented Lysol.