There are cracker crumbs on my bum.  My almost-11 month old little girl has crawled over to me, leaving a trail of Ritz particles, and has pulled herself up to standing by my chair and is sharing her mess with my lower half.  She’s pretty adorable as she tries to look utterly pitiful so I will pick her up.  Mission accomplished, little agent.

She has reached the stage where containment is despicable.  She begs for me to hold her yet wiggles and squirms, discontent in my arms, and then again discontent when I put her down.  Security competes with curiosity.

We were grocery shopping yesterday, my little “helpers” and I.  During the time I compared prices of cheese sticks (I decided against them, this time.  I want a coupon!) she had wriggled, buckled in, so that her feet were no longer in the leg holes of the cart seat, and were instead above the handles.  Pretty hilarious looking, but the lady behind me appeared as if she was thinking how I was a neglectful mother.  It’s not like I parked her an aisle away from me or anything, woman.

You know what I like best about the cheese aisle?  It’s close to the free samples.  I have a feeling I’m not the only mom of a toddler who does an inner-happy-dance at the sight of a food-sample container that is miraculously stocked with cookies or donuts or other bad, bad sugary thing that keeps the kiddo (and me, when I throw self-control to the wind…and I usually do with food) sane for another minute.

Anyhow, then when I was checking out and paying for all the groceries, Sissy got herself turned completely around in the cart seat.  I have no idea how because the buckle wasn’t that loose, just comfortably clicked in.  The cashier on the register behind us was eyeing us like, “Ain’t ya gonna do something about that, Mom?!”  Yes, yes of course I am.  At the moment my toddler is squashing the grapes and I need to sign the doohickey and load my cart because the people behind me are being impatient.  Why don’t they use the self-check-out if they only have three things, anyway?

It’s a good thing to be concerned about a little one’s safety, I won’t fault others for that.  However, the other day somebody at the park obviously trusted my son’s ability to safely climb on part of the playground less than I did as I watched from a short distance away and the lady snatched him off, to his alarm.  She did it with a “Your mother shouldn’t be letting you do this!” attitude, eyebrows furrowed.  She came with a little girl.  Hah.  Not saying that all little girls don’t climb stuff…but I’m thinking, She hasn’t spent much time with toddler boys.  (The ground was rubbery park surface and directly underneath him were squishy tires.  He woulda been fine if he fell, though maybe startled.  I’d be following him around every second turning blue in the face if I tried to tell him not to do everything he made his mind up to, so if it’s not naughty or fatally injurious, I let it go.)

There was recently a cute youtube video going viral of a little girl whose response to what she considered pestering was, “Worry ’bout your self!” (She obviously had an older sibling and heard it before from Mom or whomever).  That line keeps coming to my mind and making me smile.  I say it in my mental-narrator-voice as a really mature 2 or 3 yr. old. 😉