back when kari was crazy

 
p.j. has turned into a complete ape since Christmas.

Before Christmas, a lot of her concentration went toward the job of walking itself.

Now however, she's fluent in walking and ready to conquer the world.

Starting with my purse.  No, no, no, you get out of there. Babies cannot write checks.

If sit down, shortly I'm leaping up over and over to rescue her.

If I get up and actually attempt to DO something, she's right there, hanging on my legs, hollering to be held.

She is not in need of comforting though.  She wants to be, Uppy!  as Kirsten called it when she was little, so she can conquer whatever I'm working on.  She flails around grabbing at the spoon, the calculator, the keyboard, the pens, my phone, whatever she can get her paws on.



She'd also loooove to handle Sidney, but this is not allowed.  Sidney is delicate and cranky about that kind of contact.

When I suggested she go manhandle her own dog or roll around on Sam, Heidi laughed, "Nah. She's already defeated them."

Whee.  It's all about the challenge.

So Lydia, aka Kari, and I were discussing her shenanigans while we drove home from the dentist and Kari said, "Why is she so CRAZY?"

I asked her if she remembered her own crazy days?  

No, she did not.

 here's heidi wrangling my wild baby back in the day

Okay, she was a handful.  SHE did not listen, and did not care. 

When she was about a year and a half old, all she did was take off all her clothes all day long.    It was February, and there she'd be naked, complaining that she was cold.  She'd cover up with my bathrobe, shivering, while I found her more clothes.

One day we were at the dentist, and I was reading a magazine and realized another guy in the waiting room was chuckling.  Yeah. She was down to a diaper and one sock.

Another day Jay came home from work and when the front door opened, she was by the coffee table, naked, and hollered, "AAAHH!  I COLD!  Shut da door!"

Jay yelled back, "I can't take this constant nudity!  I can't believe I'm actually saying that.  But honestly, what are we going to do with her?"

Heidi and Kirsten were also annoyed that she kept turning up naked when they had friends over and she wasn't potty trained, and that created some OTHER issues that irked them.

(Like the time they called me upstairs because their room smelled like shit.   Sympathetic me:  "Well, duh. Look at this mess."

"No, Mother, for real. There is poop in here."

Actually, they were right.  It was just outside their door, but the bulb in the hallway was burned out so we didn't see it right away.    Fun times.)

Well.  I went to the great store of Walmart and bought about ten fleece footie zipper pajamas.  And I dressed my crazy Kari in a diaper and t-shirt and socks, and then put on a zipper suit and pinned the zipper so she couldn't take it off.

Awww, look at how cute my pretty baby was.

That's what she wore, every day for about three months: un-removeable zipper suits until spring.  She had lots of  adorable outfits that she only wore if we were going somewhere special.

But now she's real civilized and all--leaves her clothes on, makes sense.   She can even cook and figure out ratios and fractions and stuff, do research and also laundry.

 Someday p.j. will be like that.

 
But not today.   I love you, wild Monkey Girl, and you other girls too.   love, Grandma, aka MOM