It’s been a beautiful fall day. With heavy winds. I’ve been enjoying it and threw open all the windows in the house to allow in the fresh fall air. Should have thought about that before breaking it to X-Man that I couldn’t find any of his minion underpants. And that we needed to brush his teeth. I almost judge my neighbors for NOT calling the police. Clearly someone was being murdered……or dressed. To add insult to injury, when he tried to toss some duplos into their container, he missed. I half expected him to rend his garments.

X-Man isn’t napping anymore. We’ve reached an understanding, naps aren’t required, but quiet time is. If not for his recharging, then for mine. I find myself craving the couple of hours of relative quiet that comes with Cinco and X-Man napping. So, I let X-Man have his quiet time. Which means I hear the sound of toys being dumped out and him thumping around upstairs and he stays upstairs. The relative quiet is uneasy, as X-Man does know how to open his door now. But that can be effective as it allows for easy access to the bathroom. Which typically is a good thing.

Until today. As I sat, trying to read and heard the unmistakable “plop….plop…plop” of water. From somewhere. And of course, that somewhere was indeed the upstairs bathroom.  I rushed upstairs to be met by the sight of my stark naked three year old son, sitting in the bathroom sink, water running. And of course, this sink lacked the overflow protections any normal sink would have, so the overflow spread all over the floor and the counter.  

I just stared. It had been a day already, and I just couldn’t process what I was seeing. Including how on earth he got himself entirely in the sink. He helpfully chirped “I wash mommy!” On closer inspection of my reaction he realized that he probably should hide and struggled to unwedge himself from the sink. “I sleep mommy!” A fifty pound toddler goes into a bathroom sink much easier than he comes out of it. 

We’re going to have to brush up on the definition of quiet time it seems.

Typing is a bit of a challenge today. X-Man did something to the keyboard. It's actually quite clear what he did. He popped the F key off. And then tried to hide the evidence. By putting it back. Upside down. Close.....but no cigar.

Cinco is taking is playing fast and loose with the whole “co-sleeping” thing. She’s down with the “co” part. It’s the sleeping that she’s stretching the definition of. It doesn’t matter what time I sneak into bed, she’s wide awake and ready to play. And by play, I mean, nurse, poke eyes, pull hair, closely examine ears, and shove fingers up noses. Not unlike circuits in exercise routines, she keeps things moving. There’s no lull within which to doze off. She asks to nurse now, well if you call “na-na-na” asking. But she only ever says it if she wants something to drink. She’s quite talented. Just about the time I’m ready to thrown in the towel and deal with the tears and shrieking, she starts asking to “na-na-na.” I mean, I know that these moments are winding down, babyhood is so fleeting. And so I get guilted into allowing her to continue her shenanigans.

It’s caused challenges the last couple of nights. After two plus hours, I was done. Over it.  And even the sweet little “na-na-na” didn’t move my sleepy heart. I handed her off to the father figure, who she isn’t so interested in playing with as he is capable of sleeping through nuclear war. The father figure embraced her in a bear hug and commenced snoring. Her little arms were stretched out to me and she was crying “mama”. I’m not cold hearted, mostly, so I move to the couch. I figured if she couldn’t see me, she’d remember that she was indeed exhausted and pass out. Sure enough, she became quiet within a couple of minutes. And blessed sleep began to descend. When suddenly…..SLAP. SLAP. SLAP. SLAP.  The sound of little bare feet on a hardwood floor.  Followed by “WHAM” a high five to the face. And there was Cinco; she waited until the father figure fell back asleep, relaxing his grip and off she went.  Good times.

Her shenanigans, and my endeavors with Shaun T’s T25, left me completely wiped out. So I ended up soundly asleep last night. Only to be startled awake suddenly. It was most likely the lack of hair pulling. Cinco was gone. I shook the father figure “Where’s the baby!?” He offered something unintelligible, so off I went to look for her. She was not in the kitchen, or in her toys, or upstairs. And she was being very quiet, as I couldn’t find her anywhere. I returned to our bedroom and flipped on the light “FATHER FIGURE! WHERE IS THE BABY????” He barely moved and grunted “Down there” Sure enough, at the foot of the bed, head poking out the blankets the father figure consistently dislodges, was Cinco. Her eyes were closed and the father figure complained “She’s been pulling my leg hair for a while now.” So I rescue one or both of them. I could see Cinco getting kicked in the head and a little ear prodding didn’t seem so bad when compared with the alternative, racing around a darkened house looking for a sleeping baby.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m thinking insomnia is a possibility.

Mac where did you put Cinco’s new baby doll?”

“It is in the palace of darkness and fatigue.”

EH?

Mac clarified “That’s what I say when I don’t know things.”

Good to know.

I inadvertently established a bedtime routine with Mac. As I was struggling to meet a looming deadline, Mac came to say goodnight. I hugged and kissed him and sent him on his way. Only he refused to go. “You forgot something!” I rekissed and rehugged him. “You still forgot something!” He helpfully pointed to the calendar. Not that it helped me at all. He gestured wildly at the calendar. I was still perplexed. There were no weird stickers or notes on it. I was completely befuddled.  He finally exploded “You have to say ‘See you tomorrow’” Oh….oops.

It is very hard to clean banana out of semi-shag carpet. This wasn’t a lesson that I needed to learn. I assumed that banana and carpets shouldn’t mix. However Cinco, Baby and Mac conspired to teach us this lesson. Although it’s wasn’t for lack of botched clean up attempts on their part. No one is quite clear on how the banana ended up in Mac’s bedroom but everyone was clear on the fact that Cinco sat on it.

artwork by Baby or Baba. Neither can remember. 

This is one of the more bloody blogs I’ve written. I was in a different room when Cinco face planted in front of the father figure. For obvious reasons, she is only content in my lap at this point.  This is making typing hard. Not to mention it is again bed time. Mac just came in to say goodnight. I made sure to hug him and say “I love you. Good night. See you tomorrow.”

The boy’s giggle is infection and darling. And he giggled at me and said “Close Mommy, you’re supposed to say ‘See you in the morning’!” Now that I know I have to remember it…..I’ll never get it right. No good comes from talking to your children. 

Spring soccer is upon us. There isn't a day that we don't have to go to some
one's practice. Stay at home mom fail.

Cinco was awake and happy to be so in the wee hours of the morning. She thought that she should nurse....a lot. Mostly to get it out of the way. There's too much to do during daylight hours to bother with nursing. Besides yelling at anyone eating and flapping your hands as if you are an abandoned baby bird is working just swell. In fact, the only time Cinco is interested in nursing at all is if X-Man happens to be sitting in my lap. Well, katie bar the door because it's about to get hungry in her tummy. Her feet don't stay still during that time, mostly so that she can kick X-Man if he tries to climb back on.

So there we were, nursing away. I kept trying to swap in a binky and she kept removing it from her mouth and chucking it. Of course this would be the time that X-Man started to bellow loudly. Something he never does. The boy loves his sleep and deeply indulges thorough the night. But there he was, pounding on his shut bedroom door, crying.

I woke the father figure and sent him up to investigate. His efforts were rewarded with a most definite "NOOOO MOOMMMY!!!!!" The father figure happily obliged.

I handed off Cinco, who mentally added this to her list of resentments, and asked the all important question "Is puke involved?" It was not.

X-Man was standing at the top of the stairs, yelling for me, and not waking his siblings somehow. When he saw me he said "Up please Dank you."  It's all one phrase to him. And so we sat. He wiped his nose on my shoulder and definitively declined my attempts to take him downstairs. I'm guessing the father figure had some words with him. Indeed, if the father figure could have just one do over in his life, I certain it would be the day that he allowed his young, naive fiancee to convince him that a king sized bed was too big and that a queen sized was just fine. He tolerates one child in bed with us.......and X-Man is roughly the size of three Cincos.

So I tucked him back in bed and left. He didn't even yell "Wait wait!" which is his usual bedtime routine. Followed by a request to read a story about Jesus, because Mom knows she really shouldn't say no to that. But the Jesus story book is quickly yanked from the hands and replaced with a Thomas the Tank Engine book. By which time, Mom has committed to reading another story, or as is more typically the case, reading The Little Blue Truck for the fifth time, and can't really quit.

I crawled back into bed and updated the father figure. No vomit. No cramps. No needing the potty. No clue. The father figure theorized it was a bad dream and that maybe something bad had happened to me in it. I countered that more likely, X-Man did something really bad in his dream and was concerned that I was aware of it in real life.

Either way, we talked just long enough for Cinco to clue in, pull the binky out of her mouth and throw it.

It's been an odd day. I admit I'm a bit jumpy. I keep waiting for X-Man to flood something else. But he's keeping a low profile for the moment. Wise boy. But, it didn't matter because I lost Cinco today.


I walked into the kitchen, noticed that someone (Baby) had taken the breakfast dishes and placed them not where they belonged, but rather in the sink. So, I started loading the dishwasher. Then I figured it was time to check X-Man again. He wasn't in the kitchen and he wasn't pilfering the pantry. The bathroom door was still shut as was my bedroom door. He wasn't in the office. So I hurried upstairs. The girls were in their bedroom, as the sun poured in, studying. And there was X-Man, sitting with them reading a book. It was sweet. I checked with the girls as to what they were working on in school. I made sure that X-Man didn't have to use the potty. And then I realized, I had just assumed that Cinco
 would be with everyone else, as Mac had come out of his room to check in on us. She hadn't been anywhere that I had looked for X-Man. The bathroom door upstairs was closed as well and Mac confirmed she was not in his room. Well then, where the heck was she? I felt a bit of panic, having visions of her climbing into the cleansers under the sink, or choking on a purloined cracker. I rechecked everywhere, it is a small house after all. I rationally knew that she couldn't open the doors, but I still checked the backyard. She was gone.


I knew that CPS would take all the children away when she was found, crawling down the street, carrying cleaning supplies and choking on entirely inappropriate snacks. Meanwhile, I determined that she hadn't open the bathroom door and then locked herself in there. And I went to check my bedroom.

There she was. Asleep. In her bed. Where I had put her. Before walking into the kitchen and having load the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher.

I have completely lost it.

Well behaved days result in uninteresting blogs. Fortunately, Cinco did her part last night.

I pulled the old trick of the father figure. Lay down with the baby to help her go to sleep and conveniently  miss out in the chaos in the rest of the house. The chaos was actually rather minimal last night as the father figure was playing chess with the kids, but I was ready to call it a night. And while I was ok with X-Man meandering around, I wasn't a fan of Cinco and X-Man holding court together.

So off to bed we went. It did not go well. If you've seen the "How to Fight a Baby" video well it was that. Only, Cinco wasn't the baby. Except sometimes she was. I just wasn't fighting all that well. Or at all. Cinco was very excited to be in bed with me. And she showed her excitement by trying to drag my face all over the bed to better show me....stuff. She has very sharp fingernails. And the easiest point of contact for her was none other than my mouth. My lips to be precise. So that was not exactly comfortable.

I would pry her absurdly attached little fingers off and settle her down. She was in bed with me because she screamed when placed in her own bed. I was beginning to think happy Cinco might be worse than angry Cinco. This hunch was confirmed as she viciously began to suck on my neck. In a "I lost my binkie, actually I threw it worth a shriek, and any port in a storm." As I pried her off my neck, she decided to fist bump me. With her head. On my eye socket.

While I was reacting with more noise than I would prefer to admit, Cinco realized "Hey, you know what I haven't done in a few hours....bite mom's nose!" And more shrieking from me. I believe I actually asked her "What did I do to you?!"

Of course Cinco felt bad, so she attempted to fix my hair as a sign of her care for me. It did not go well. Although my hair was due for a thinning. So, it was helpful I suppose. She was as successful as she was because she propped herself up by kneeling on my stomach. She also thought my eye lashes needed to be manicured.

I think this is why the father figure keeps staking out the couch..

Since we all got home from soccer, I've yelled at X-Man fourteen times in the last three minutes. He discovered the drawer in my desk. So far he's tossed the box of push pins in the air, not really in the mood for 52 something pick up, he sprayed me with whiteboard cleaner, attempted to feed stamps to Cinco and sharpied his nose. Cinco is hovering at his ankles, yanking on his pants desperately wanting to join the fun.

Being more perceptive than her brother, she also scooted away quickly to the doorstop, where she began to play us the song of her people.

Today's been a scattered day of contractors and high school soccer games. Which is kind of odd, since I don't have any high schoolers. But Baby's soccer team got to run the lines of their soccer coach's high school team. They got to chase down errant balls. But mostly they got to do cartwheels, spin around in circles and then fight over the random ball that came their way.

And I really should be moving furniture with the father figure in anticipation of the floor refinishers that are coming tomorrow. I dread learning what all's involved. All I heard was the ominous "Well, you should be able to sleep here Wednesday night."

And it's time for me to go. The father figure is helping Cinco go to sleep, which means she's still awake and he's passed out. The other kids are in bed. I persevered through Ferdinand the Bull despite X-Man's adamant insistence that Ferdidand was a moo. And Mac kept trying to enlighten him on the reality of bulls and not being moos. As they were supposedly dreaming away, I began to blog. Only to be disturbed by a crash, and suspicious thumps. X-Man's eyes are large to begin with, but he mostly certainly had a completely stunned look on his face as I caught him rounding the corner. Sure enough, not satisfied with not one but two dinners tonight, X-Man snuck down and polished off the father figures dinner. In his rush to return, undetected, to bed, he climb off the table and knocked the plate off. Of course he would then step in the dinner remnants and tracked them back to the stairs.

Yet somehow I'm the bad guy who brushed his teeth for the second time. We're not waiting for Festivus to engage in feats of strength here.

But MOOOOMM....why don't you want to hear my inside scream?

They say that you forget the pain of childbirth. There must be something to that, as women freely choose to repeat the process. It seems to me that the memory fail sets in at pregnancy. I have a vague recollection that I hate being pregnant and that's about all. So there must be something that kicks in, or turns off as it were, the moment motherhood begins.

That explains how it was that I forgot how utterly destructive a two year old can be when left unattended. Fortunately X-Man was left unattended in his own room. During what was supposed to be his nap time. As we moved to our new half house (I was going to say halfway house, as in halfway done, but that didn't seem too prudent, who knows what the NSA will pick up ) X-Man graduated from a pack and play to a big boy bed. It's not that he's big enough to stay in a big boy bed, it's that he spent a good two hours vaulting himself out of the pack and play while raging about attempts to be contained. So, the bottom bunk bed became X-Man's.

I knew that he liked to play during nap time. I don't really care. The important thing is that he is enjoying peace and quiet. Mac is not "hugging" him or otherwise harassing him. He is not sticking tools and toy in the fridge. Or pushing Cinco in her swing, and by pushing I mean stopping the swing and attempting to climb in with the explanation "Help baby, help baby." And I have three minutes to myself, without X-Man following me everywhere holding yogurts pilfered from the fridge and yelling at me to open them. Lest you think this is my free time, this is when I grade papers, including one paper about the Colonial time period that featured Cortez and the Aztecs. It's not exactly a calm time for me. But it is quiet though and I'll take what I can get.

Today, X-Man was less subtle than usual. Mostly because he found the various containers under the bed which held the carefully sorted cars, action figures, Lincoln logs etc. X-Man's game of choice was entropy, and master it he did. Before collapsing in the middle of his great success. My personal game of choice is insanity, repeating the same thing over and over hoping for different results (explains the five kids) so back to sorting all the toys, each in its individual container. Right before tucking X-Man in for the night. Which involved him trying to push me out the door saying "go, go momma!" I cringe thinking of what I, and the insulation installers, will walk into tomorrow morning. (Yes the insulation installers who were supposed to be here a week ago. Only their third trip to this house. That will be its own story one of these days)

I had doubted my decision yesterday to let X-Man sleep on the upper bunk at nap time yesterday. As I entered the war zone in which my sons recreate, I doubted my doubts. Halfway through clean up I decided that indeed X-Man would be contained within the four bars of the bunk bed, a situation he didn't find nearly as outrageous as the four walls of a pack 'n play. This was my resolution until X-Man, who had been contained on said upper bunk as I cleaned, let out a thrilled "ooooh".  I turned to see him, well at least half of him. His upper half had disappeared into the crawl space that was above the bed. Scratch that plan.

Chaos it is. Contained chaos. I won't even imagine what having a two year old loose in the attic would result in.

 I'd blog more if Gestated Cinco wasn't all "WHEE!!!! SLEEPING!!!!" It's almost as if she's heard the phrase "Lay down and go to sleep" and translated it to "Get down and go to sleep." She's downright funky when sleeping. Thrashing and kicking and stretching, and as we are visiting grandma's house, she's in bed with us. So here we are, in Cinco's personal disco, without the benefit of alcohol. Not that Cinco's deprived. Her own personal wet bar is at her disposal, as is her father's arm if she wants to really live it up. All while sleeping. So you can't really be annoyed with her, because all I thought I wanted was a baby who slept, I didn't actually request sedated sleeping.

She sleeps perfectly still when I hold her. Which is what I'm doing right now. A baby in the arms and a computer on the lap in an August evening makes for a sticky sweaty mess. Yes I really did write that and I am well aware of how first worldy it all is, but whatever.

Cinco keeps getting jolted awake because X-Man figured how to climb out of his crib. I suppose it was a long time coming, but now it's just a long time complaining. We've moved it, placed barriers around every side and been screamed at in rage. It's particularly sad because X-Man used to be the best sleeper in the world. He did not visit the rave that is Cinco's REM. He conked out and stayed out for twelve hours.

But that was before, in a fit of rage, he bit holes in each of his binkies. His one source of soothing, other than food, was suddenly gone. I was alerted to this around 2am one morning. I stumbled into his bedroom, scooped up a couple of binkies that he had thrown out of his bed and said "here you go, don't throw them." I was almost hit with a flying binky and assaulted with shrieks of "nonnononono bebebebes!" I discovered secret to his rage. And the rest is history. And is why X-Man is going 16 rounds with the father figure as we speak.

He's stopped trying to get out of the bed, and he's no longer trying to make a break out the front door. I'm no longer involved the warfare, mostly because I can't take watching X-Man run. Normally, he moves as a buoy in the ocean. When he chooses to run, he lowers his head and shoulders to a 15 degree angle and just shuffles his feet very quickly. If he's particularly irritated because, say, someone is trying to make him go bed, he juts out his lower jaw, frowns hard and tilts his head to one side and charges forward. He moves like an inebriated penguin. Driving a howitzer. It's both scary and hilarious at the same time.

Oh, and the washer is leaking, so

the father figure is presently up to his ears in parts, so it's up to me to take on the tank driving rage machine.

Family bed? HA! Sounds sweet and lovely and appealing...because "Jungle of legs and errant arms and head butts with a side of broken noses and pillows marked as territory" just doesn't have the same ring.

It’s deceptive advertising. But seriously, the virtues of the family bed are far exaggerated. That is unless you don’t intend your bed to be used for such outlandish things as sleeping. If you are looking for an easy to use jungle gym, the family bed is your thing.

As I have said, I was very clueless when I had my first child. So I stumbled upon the family bed after falling asleep while nursing. And I liked it.  As shown by my rejection of bottle feeding, I am always about the easy way out. What is that they say, pennywise pound foolish?

Some of my favorite memories are coming home from church, after coffee and doughnuts of course, and having a family nap in our family bed. Glorious. I could even abide the fact that my daughter could only fall asleep by playing with my cuticles. Seriously. Traced each one with her little fingernail, and heaven help me if she found a hang nail. About this time I realized that tactile children were….challenging. And that self-soothing still, somehow, required mom. Again with the deceptive advertising. Baby did give up on pulling my hair to fall asleep when she could finally find some wisps on her own head. Mac went for the jugular, literally. Loved to play with my neck. X-Man is all about the ear. But, in a rare break for me, if he has a choice of an ear; he goes with his dad’s. I’ll wake up to see the boy lying on top of his father, ears in both hands.

The girls didn’t spend a whole lot of time in our bed. We learned with our first that lying down with her to take a nap was a totally great idea, until you discover that nap time is the closest thing you have to freedom for the next eighteen years. And you just decided to spend it as a visitor in prison. Partially because I was working so much when Baby was born, she slept well and on her own. Good child.

But then came friends who read baby books and new things about fads like “gentle parenting” and “attachment parenting.” They started extolling the virtues baby wearing and cosleeping and extended nursing and basically things that I was doing…..sort of. But if I wanted healthy, well-adjusted children, and who wouldn’t, I would have to embrace theses philosophies more fully. And so I did.

Whoops.

Who doesn’t want to be awaken from a semi-restful slumber to the announcement “Mommy I peed in your bed, so I’m going to go sleep in mine now.” It’s really actually a polite way to ease yourself into Monday. And it’s not like you could blow off laundry anyway.

It’s not like I tried to keep them with us. Just the opposite. In what I thought was a stroke of genius, I took them shopping with Christmas money from Grandma and Grandpa, to buy their own bedding. What better way to convey that “This is YOUR bed” than sleeping in your own Tow Mater sheets. That victory lasted about three hours. Just long enough for me to assume that I was indeed in the clear.  "There are monsters in my room, or, I mean, a robot. There's a big robot in room, and I'm scared. I mean, Spiderman. Spiderman is in my room, can I sleep with you?"

"I thought Spiderman was your friend, why are you scared?"

"Spiderman is in my bed, so I need to sleep with you”

Of course Spiderman is in your bed, YOU put him there. Along with every matchbox car in existence.  As we discovered when it was bedtime. Mac jumped into bed yelled "ouch" and jumped back out. He pulled the covers back, announced "oh yeah, cars sleeping" and proceeded to remove 20 or so cars and trucks from his bed. At least they were sleeping in his bed. Mac believes that the term “family bed” should be stretched to include any and all toys that catch his fancy. It wasn’t until I woke up with a matchbox car tangled in my hair, and that’s every bit as much fun as it sounds, that I realized he wasn’t limiting himself to the cars he could carry in his hand. Oh no. FYI footed pajamas make great toy carriers. Simply unzip a bit and start filling. If it sounds uncomfortable to sleep like that, that’s because it is. So of course all the cars must come out, in mommy and daddy’s bed. And sometimes the diaper comes off with them.

It’s not that I didn’t try to keep it clear that THIS was mommy and daddy’s bed. In OUR bedroom. But our world is really my kids’ oyster. I distinctly remember instructing Mac one night that if he was disgruntled about a perceived misappropriation of blankets between parents and child, he was welcome to move back to his room where there were blankets aplenty and ripe for the taking. He actually listened and trundled off to his bedroom. I did not intend for him to return with every blanket

Other things I was never prepared for. Being awakened at 2am, being smacked in the face. Mac smiled and said “go sleep mommy. I pet you." So I said, “Ok”.  In all fairness, this had nothing to do with cosleeping or having a family bed. He was in his own room at the time….or he was supposed to be. I’m not sure how you teach “you shouldn’t really pet mama when she is supposed to be sleeping.” I should have gotten the boy a dog. And then dealt with a two year old boy and a puppy.  At that point in time, I’d would have rather be awoken while the boy is going through his petting phase.   But by the third night, when he woke me up and asked if he could pet me, I said “no” and that phase ended.

Only to be follow a couple weeks later by Mac waking me up to talk to his hair. And I did. I don't know who has more issues. It was early in the morning, so I don’t really remember what I said. Something about getting enough sleep helps hair grow like wildfire. And boy has it.

I am reverting to old stories, cutting and pasting, because X-Man is asleep on my rotund belly. Now while some might think that having a child fall asleep on you while you are blogging is, in fact, not something you should admit in public, I maintain it is proof that I has all the multitaskingz.

 I had one of the most enjoyable parenting moment ever yesterday. In order maintain some sort of guise of anonymity I will refer to my offspring as the youngest in the family does. The elder daughter is named "Baba" and the younger refers to herself as "Baby."

So Baba and Baby were particularly naughty yesterday. Baba drew on the walls with a pencil, a pencil I sharpened for her no less, and Baby added red marker to the mix. Where was I? Scrubbing the crayon off the walls in their room.

Baba tried to pin the blame on Baby alone, but since she was holding the pencil, and I sharpened it for her, I jumped on that like ocean view property in Arizona. Baby kept pointing to the wall and yelling "Baba." So they both got wall scrubbing duties. And then were sent to bed.

Baby, not yet being two, thought this was unbelievably cruel. And voiced her opinions, for about an hour. I kept putting her in bed, she kept getting out. It got quiet, and then the phone rang. I was puzzled for a moment, since it was me calling me. Or my cell phone calling my home phone. (I use my cell phone as an alarm clock) So, Baby, not satisfied with being contained in her bed, decided to mess with stuff in my room. Well, this could be fun. And it was.

I answered the phone, which was promptly dropped on the other side. So I said "Baby, what are you doing?" There was no answer. "Baby, why are you playing with Mama's phone?" No answer. "Baby, you get into bed right now!" That produced screams and tears and yelling. And other odd sounds. More yelling and crying. "Baby, you get into bed and you stay there." More outrage. I thought I should hand up my cell phone so I walk into my bedroom.

Baby was sitting on my bed, pointing to the phone and going off on me. (the only discernible word in her yelling was Mama) I hung up both. My cell phone was laying upside down on the nightstand, and Baby was clearly upset that she had been busted.

Knowing that Mama had eyes everywhere, Baby stayed in bed and took a nap.