I thought it was toddlers who...

...dumped the dog's water bowl over themselves.

got their fingers caught in the VCR.

tried to eat the dust-covered broom.

danced so enthusiastically to the music they were making on their LeapFrog music table that they pitched over backwards, clunking their heads.

drank soapy bath water.

did chin-ups on the oven door handle.

bounced up and down in their cribs demanding to be picked up, such that they brought their chins down hard on the rail (twice).

tripped over their own toys.

brought the aforementioned music table down on their hands.

stood up on the changing table and pulled the decor off their walls.

refused to have a diaper changed or clothes put on without a back-arching, torso-twisting, teary struggle.

***
The hard part of this thing has come sooner than I thought. While many people find early infancy the most daunting, all along I'd been imagining it would be early toddlerhood. Big enough to be into everything without the stability to stay upright or the cognitive skills to understand "no" or to remember what caused them problems the last time. And very few communication skills.

I didn't realize you could get all that--and more--even before toddlerhood. Edith isn't walking, but she is into everything, and it's exhausting. Moreover, she's too little to be taught what it's not a good idea to be into; all the experts recommend distraction as your only disciplinary technique at this age. Add to the package a newfound preference for mom (accompanied by piteous wails when the object of her desire is removed as much as two feet) and the introduction of nighttime awakenings every 2-3 hours, and let's just say it's a good thing I'm biologically programmed to find her cute.

Edith's teacher also noticed the sudden leap in physical activity. "She's so mature!" she exclaimed at the end of Edith's first day back from Christmas break. "Is that what you call it?" I asked dubiously.

I confess I am happy she finally discovered the bookshelves, though. We were steeled long ago for her to start pulling volumes off the shelves. She not only didn't touch the books, until yesterday she had never even pulled up to standing on a bookshelf, although pulling up is her favorite current activity and the house is full of bookshelves. She opted for table legs, oven doors, and smooth walls instead. Combined with her lack of interest in even the shortest of baby board books, we were joking about our dumb jock.

But this weekend she found the shelves and proved she knows what she's doing: she went first for a set of looseleaf photocopies Tom had stuck down low, rather than anything bound. When she did move on to books, she went for Foucault. She referred to him yesterday and then again today. Obviously she's learning all she can about the sources and nature of power. Let the battle of wills begin.