In Every Family, There's Always One

You hear about them.  The kids that paint with their own poop... Drink from the bottle of bleach... Stick beans up their nose...  Redecorate their bedroom walls with permanent marker.  Each time you hear these stories you get a good laugh, compare your kid and thank your lucky stars your angel has never been that bad.  But lets be honest, all kids have their moments to shine.  We all have our "OM'GOD" parenting tales.  And the more kids you have, the better the odds that your family has to... well... Shine.


You know that term "There's always one in every family?"  The image that pops in my head when I hear that, is of a distant cousin who just can't get anything right or that great uncle who is always in and out of jail.  But enough about my extended family, I no longer need to look that far.  Let's just say, I knew it was a gamble when I got pregnant for the 3rd time adding to our already rather large brood of 4.  5 seemed like a big number.  But they were all good kids and we figured, we knew what we were doing.  Truth is, we just lucked out all those other times!  As a result, we got lazy and Liberty was plopped in our laps to wake us up and bring us back into the roll of attentive parenting. 

Now, I'm not saying I ignored our children before, we just had pretty laid back kids.  We put up gates and baby proofed the house for all the kids even though they proved them to be pretty much unnecessary.  Cait, who used to bounce off the walls of her playpen, would freak if the locks (intended for her) were left undone and would lock them herself.  Even Liam, who would sneak out the front door, only did so to be with us out front and would never leave the porch for fear of losing us forever! The older two (from what I hear) were similar in their behavior and judging by how they are now, I believe it.

Libby is that ONE in our family.  She is the first to question our baby proofing efforts by insisting she must get into EVERYTHING!  Barely one, and this child has thrown tantrums that would put a 3 year old to shame!  She has about figured out how to take down the baby gate.  She can't walk on her own yet, but she can crawl up on pretty much everything.  She hates her diaper and has been known to strip it off while crawling down the hallway.  "No" is not yet in her vocabulary, but swatting and growling she has mastered.  She must eat everything.  That includes clothes, toys, paper, food left on the floor by the older two, MY food, markers, stuffies, and unsuspecting bugs.   Poor ant never saw her coming. *shudder*

I swear ya'll.  She is going to be my "OM'GOD! Libby just ______ a _______  and we are headed to the ER!" kid.  In other words, she'll be THAT kid. 

Or.. this one:

No.  That's not mine.   Yet.

Lord help me.