Little Miss Audrey

Some of you may have heard me talk about or have observed for yourself how perfectly behaved my little Audrey is. She is 21 months old now and up until recently has been the apple of my eye. She is so different from my first three kids. She is sweet and soft. She listens when I say "no". She gives love to anyone who asks. She picks up her messes. She hardly ever cries. She is an angel in nursery at church and her leaders love her. When we have visitors people fight over who will get to play with her or cuddle her. She loves Emily and is so good with her. I have never been worried about her being too rough with the baby. Lately, however I have noticed changes in her. I think she is moving to the dark side (terrible two's). Anna, Elizabeth and Dallin all hit the terrible two's at 14-15 months and never looked back. So I had reason to hope that Audrey was going to stay her sweet adorable self forever. I think I was wrong!

In the last month or two things have been changing. There have been lots of temper tantrums. I have heard "NO MOMMY," more times than I can count. She has drawn on the wall at least a dozen times and her messes are getting bigger. She has sat in a sink and turned the water on herself while eating a tube of toothpaste. She has discovered how fun it is to jump off of anything and everything. She likes to escape outside (thank goodness our backyard is fenced in) and refuses to let anyone catch her, and then when we do catch her she gets so mad she kicks you over and over again. She LOVES my makeup and my jewelry and thinks my earrings look "pretty" glistening and sparkling at the bottom of my toilet. Books are not safe because she thinks the art work is not good enough and she needs to add her own touch with permanent marker. I'm pretty sure that she has been deceiving us all. She is not my sweetest child ever, she is my rottenest child ever. She was just holding back until the baby was born, when she knew I would have to nurse, or change a diaper and then she could be as sneaky as she wanted...and get a way with it.

This morning was by far the worst. While I was doing laundry Audrey decided that Emily would make a good Mr. Potato Head. She took all of Dallin's Star Wars Mr. Potato Head pieces and stuck them wherever she could find a hole on my poor, poor baby. Tiny little Emily had a nose sticking out of one ear, eyes coming from the other ear, an arm holding a light saber coming out of her nose, and a storm trooper helmet on top of her head. I'm not sure why but Emily never woke up, thank goodness, although Audrey may have knocked her unconscious first.