Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Baby Girl Gone?

This evening, whilst scrubbing peas and carrots out of the dining room carpet, I realized 2 things. First, carpet in a dining room and peas and carrots don't mix. They're like oil and water...no, no they're not, they are way worse. Secondly, my baby girl was gone.

It's like overnight, while I was sleeping, she stealthly slipped out a window and traded places with a moody teenager...I mean toddler. I knew that soon she would start to show signs of her independence, but wow its happened so fast.

This evening during dinner, she was chowing down on wagon wheel pasta, chicken, carrots and peas. All foods she generally loves (well not so much the carrots). Suddenly, as if I had just begun torturing her, she screamed at me (her latest "new" thing) and proceeded to push her food onto her lap under the tray, smash it in her hair, dumped the contents of her plate onto the floor, and then looked at me and smiled.

Oh, but that wasn't it. As I was picking the food up off the floor and telling her why we don't do all of the things she just did, she dropped her plate on my head. Oh yes, I too, was now wearing her dinner. She then began a crying spree, the likes of which would have scared off a banshee, that lasted almost 15 minutes.

After cleaning Julianna up, cleaning myself up, and cleaning the dining room up, I sat down. Julianna climbed the chair(well, tried), curled up on my lap and began sucking her thumb. My baby girl had returned for the night.