What chance does she have?

I recently subscribed to a blog because it was mentioned on one of my other regular blogs, and honestly, I was considering removing it from my reader because nothing all that great (or longer than a paragraph) had been coming up. But I left it and decided to have a little patience (it's only been a week since I added it...). Then today, Mighty Girl posted this:

Lots of parents aren’t particularly concerned about stuff on their kids’ faces. This is because you can wipe a child’s face, leave the room to throw out the tissue, and return to find them covered with snot and dog hair. You’re standing there thinking, “We don’t even own a dog.” Well, that’s beside the point. The point is that keeping your kid’s face clean is like pushing a boulder uphill. Except the boulder has teeth, and can scream.

When I was child free, I’d laugh nervously when people passed me their baby food-covered kids. Then I’d lunge for the nearest napkin before the baby could slime my sweater. I always figured I’d grow out of that when I had my own kids, but instead I just chase Hank around with baby wipes all day. The result is a remarkably fastidious kid who would prefer not to touch anything that might leave a residue. He has a very conflicted relationship with bananas.

There's more to it, including some cute pictures of convincing her son to eat an ice cream cone. But these first couple paragraphs just spoke to me. I don't know if it's a genetic thing or if I could have spared Lillian the mild case of OCD that is my life, but I could have easily written those words. (But I didn't; please copyright police: don't come chasing after me...)

I first realized Lily was heading this direction about a year ago when I bought her some Crayola paints. My real reason for buying them was that I wanted to be able to hang some art up on the fridge. Isn't that what all moms should have? Well, I didn't, and I figured it was about time. (As a side note, she is almost constantly scribbling on something now and there is nothing hanging on my fridge. When the desire faded, I don't know.) Now, these paints were tailor made for toddlers: big and chunky with the paint completely contained inside. And like all good Crayola products, washable. We came home from the store and I immediately placed her in her highchair with a piece of paper and waited for her artistic genius to emerge. Instead, about 5 minutes later, she's whining because she has paint on her hands.

It was then I knew I had created a monster.

Similar to Mighty Girl, I'm constantly chasing Lillian around with wipes (although as mentioned in a previous post, she sometimes sneaks things by me and I still end up with gunk on my clothes), and apparently, she has come to expect such treatment. She'll put her hands in anything until she realizes...and even seems surprised by the fact that...her hands are sticky/wet/dirty/ covered in ranch. She even has the same "conflicted relationship with bananas."

Take last night, for example. After eating a piece of taffy, and drooling on Erik (HA!HA!), her hands were sticky. Then she proceeded to pet the dog. Well...not pet so much as pinch him, pulling off handfuls of hair at the same time. She about had a break down because her hands were covered in dog hair. Of course, I probably would have reacted the same way. :)

There are some days it takes hours to eat a pb&j because she likes to scoop the jelly out with her finger. Then, naturally, she needs her hands wiped off before she can do it again.

Coloring on the chalkboard is a very interesting time since we're constantly wiping dust off her hands so she can pick up a different color.

At least once a day she asks for a wipe and then proceeds to clean MY face.

In a conversation with my mom the other day, we realized Lily will have a very interesting set of neuroses to deal with since she also has Erik's ADD. OCD and ADD just don't mix...think about it. Clean, clean, clean...oh; a bird! Where was I? Clean, clean, clean...look: a shiny thing!

She's doomed.