Am Misbehavin'

Abbie’s behavior is improving. I think she knows some things that she is and isn’t supposed to do. Some days, she minds well and follows the path that leads to songs and candy. Other days, she opts for scoldings instead of songs, and the only candy in the house is the sweet taste of timeouts. Today was one of those latter days.

It started this morning while I was washing dishes. Abbie played contentedly in the living room next to me. She was out of sight but within earshot, so as long as I could hear electronic toys blaring and the occasional thud of a thrown toy, I knew everything was fine. Suddenly I heard her screaming. Generally this means that she sees something she wants but can’t reach, or possibly she wedged herself under the end table again. I went to investigate, and found her screaming under the chinchilla cage. My first guess was that she stuck her finger in the cage and got it bit, but on closer inspection I realized that she had just stuffed her mouth full of chinchilla cage detritus*, and must have discovered it tastes really bad. I sat down to clean her mouth out with my finger, and Abbie responded like a chinchilla with a finger in its cage; she bit me, hard, hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough to draw a little blood.

After gingerly scraping the rest of her mouth out, I drug her into the kitchen with me, gave her a sippy cup of water in the hopes that she’d rinse her mouth out, and kept her in the kitchen where I could see her for crying out loud. Abbie entertained herself by tossing her sippy cup, shoes, and everything she could find over the baby gate that protects her from falling downstairs. At least she didn’t put anything else in her mouth.

After finishing the dishes, I drug her back to the living room so I could clean the cage detritus. Abbie saw the chinchilla’s food was disappearing from the floor, noticed the dog’s food sat unguarded, and proceeded to stuff dog food pellets in her mouth. Never mind that she hadn’t tried eating dog food in months. As soon as I noticed, I bounded in front of her and pulled three moist pellets out of her mouth. I scolded her and dumped the pellets back in the dog’s dish. Abbie took this opening to stuff her mouth with more dog food kibble, this time from the floor. As quickly as I could wrest kibble from her, she had another piece in hand. We quickly moved all dog food out of her reach, a move that couldn’t have made the dog happy, but she’s starting to chunk up anyway.

By this time it was time to feed the twins. As soon as I sat with bottles in hand, Abbie was on top of us trying to grab the bottles and stick her fingers in the twins’ mouths. She’d been doing better about behaving while I feed the twins, but apparently wanted a timeout refresher today.

I set the twins in their gym after feeding them in peace, freed Abbie from her room, and returned to cleaning the cage detritus. With my back turned, Abbie grabbed the still mostly full glass of water that I’d been drinking from while feeding the twins, and took a sip. She quickly realized that it was water and not something tasty like Diet Coke, and dumped the glass onto the floor, soaking the twins in the process. I cursed my idiocy and started changing the twins’ clothes, which was the first time either baby had soaking wet clothes for a non-diaper related reason.

Satisfied that her work in the living room was done, Abbie returned to the kitchen. There she found the pan of Lucky Charm Treats** I made. These were on the stove and out of her reach, or at least were out of her reach if she were stuck on the floor. Abbie climbed into her high chair that I carelessly left next to the stove, from which she could easily access the entire pan. I discovered her shenanigans when she toddled around the corner, treat in hand. At first I was simply pleased that she decided to eat my cooking and dismissed the rest as my negligence, but then the dog snatched the treat from her carelessly outstretched hand.

Fortunately, Ellie came home for lunch a little later. I left her to watch the twins while I took Abbie to the park. Try as she might, there’s absolutely nothing naughty she could out in the park. Except of course for stuffing woodchips in her mouth, which to her credit she did not do. She must have forgotten she could do that.

* Cage detritus is comprised of tossed chinchilla food pellets, and other things I’d rather not think about.
** Did you know that you can make Lucky Charm Treats just like you’d make Rice Krispie Treats? You can. Did you also know that they won’t be nearly as good if you use a generic version with a name like “Magic Stars” or “Fluky Trinkets?” They’ll be even worse if somebody selectively snacks on them, decreasing the already perilously low marshmallow-to-oat pieces ratio.