When the whole world is a gallery




There's something about The Badoo. She's into everything. I've had three toddlers in the house over the past six years and number three is, without a doubt, triple the trouble of the other two.

I didn't really need to "baby proof" the house for Maxi or Cappers, but suddenly six years into parenting I'm down at Bunnings clearing out their stock of powerpoint plugs and cupboard guards. Once she drew all over the walls with a black permanent marker. Along the hallway, into her siblings' rooms, through the bathroom, up the stairs. The house looked like a massacre scene in a black and white movie.

She was roused on, of course and sent to her cot. She can't handle being yelled at - she just goes to pieces. It's hard to stay angry at that cute little face when the bottom lip starts to drop, but a massacre made it easy. She was sent to the cot for 5 minutes and every time I checked on her the lip would drop and the tears would flow. She knew she'd gone too far.

Or so I thought.

Five minutes after she was sprung from her cot, the builder popped over to measure up some bookshelves. The Badoo (who is usually extremely shy of strangers in general) took him by the hand and led him to the scene of the massacre . Like an artist surveying her first gallery exhibition she proudly gestured to the walls. "I did that," she beamed. "It's a road."

What were / are your toddlers like? Did you get the big tantrums or the cheeky mischief? How on earth do you manage?

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[Image features wallpaper from Land of Nod]