Baby Wars

This Sunday we trudged home with screaming child in hand after one hour and 39 minutes of Church. A parent loss, even though her three hour nap as soon as we got home was her consolation prize to us. Danielle isn’t one of those children who really likes to learn or wants other people to be happy. I don’t know if any 15 month old is really altruistic so sometimes I feel like we are in a war. With a toddler. And there are losses. It started when she was a baby and she wouldn’t eat unless John used the “persistent bottle.” With the medicine it started as her turning her head to spit out medicine and became her holding it in her mouth and spitting it in our face as soon as the dropper was finally removed. The mommy win came when I discovered you could hold the dropper under her tongue and wait until she screamed so hard she swallowed. Well that mostly worked. The other night we came to find Danielle standing in her travel crib which is her only crib for the summer and discovered another Danielle win. She was happily awake, without a diaper. Danielle has discovered that it is fantastic to remove diapers- and not very hard if we forget long pants. Any time she can get a diaper she is thrilled- up comes mommy and out runs Danielle. A Danielle win if ever there is one involves running with a diaper in the middle of changing. Or pulling all her hair out of the back of her head and trying to pull mine then laughing. My weapons for the war? I used to have a valuable corporal named Austin that could distract my daughter who refused to eat or help her get over the pain of mommy stealing things from her like a box of tampons or daddy’s scriptures. I also like using things like drawer locks and blankets and baby toys. The other day I tried to enlist the help of a movie called Babe with a live pig. This trick earned me all of 10 minutes before I belatedly realized she could reach that third shelf on the bookcase and was emptying it of all its contents. Her height is becoming an enemy. No longer all the counters and kitchen table safe. I’ll never forget the day when Danielle happily handed me my ginger sewing shears and I put them on the table, only to receive them again 10 minutes later-Just another baby victory. Every day she doesn’t do what I call “commit baby suicide” I count as my victory, like when she brought me my opened medicine bottle or tries to get to the open oven before mommy takes anything out or when she tried to run in front of cars or in general always tries to run away. I know Danielle would love nothing more than to destroy all of my hard work, because those are her baby chores. More than that it is her destiny her part of the war. I think that the war is actually just parenting. I will keep fighting and I will win. At least I hope so.