The Scarlett Child as in My Scarlett.

My Scarlett Helena Higginson.

Some mom at dance remarked how pretty that name was yesterday. And I most certainly agree with her.

Except that, the way I'm always yelling it, followed by phrases like, "Get Over Here!" "You're going to get a spanking!!" "Don't you do it again!!!" And "STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!!!!" make the name not so pretty.

Right now in fact, she is standing in her chair. Next to me. Naked, except for a diaper and knee high red polk-a-dot socks with leftover pigtails from yesterday, stomping around like a sumo wrestler and grunting in a very loud voice.

This is my child.

Sometimes during the day, she finds the roll of Scotch Tape and brings it to either Zach or me and says, Please and points to her arm.

We indulge her.

Asking for a piece of tape to wear on her arm, is much better than taking the roll to her bedroom and decorating her doll house and wasting the entire roll of tape.

So yesterday, we went to the doctor and he remarked on her tape-made-bracelet. He asked her, "Why is there a piece of tape on your arm?"

She says, "It's my style."

This is Scarlett. The child who doesn't apologize for herself. Doesn't ever feel shy. Thinks she belongs in competition and school just because her sister does and lets you know about it every second of every day and who I've had to tell not to spit on me four times just in the course of writing this blog!

The child who took forever to grow hair. Looked like an old man forever...... But in now is probably the cutest thing I have ever seen to date.

Other than my other two children. :)

We call her our Sour Patch Kid. First she is sour, like destroys our house, or makes a huge mess, or hits her sister, or whatever you name it.

And then she's sweet. She apologizes better than any other child I have ever seen. She has perfect manners. And she loves to cuddle.

She takes her parents on an emotional roller coaster of angry to piping hot livid to melting heart to joy in the course of thirty seconds a least fifty times a day!

Sometimes we can wait until after breakfast for the Catastrophe that is Scarlett.

Sometimes not.

Like today.

This morning.

Zach has to be at work early in the mornings now. My honeymoon of sleeping in with Stryker is over.

I have to get up with the kids now. Not that I'm angry about it or anything.....

And with Scarlett that means 6:30AM.

Ungodly.

Stella, my perfect first born, doesn't wake up until 8. Ok, she's not perfect. By she is a firstborn. And you have to like them the most so you have second and third children.....

Anyways.

Today. We were up. And I was tired. Exhausted. Almost in a coma.

And Zach had turned cartoons in the living room, but I was watching tv in the bedroom and nursing Stryker, hoping upon hoping to get him back to sleep so we wouldn't have to start the nursing every 45 minutes until later. Like after 10. I've got people coming over tomorrow. I have to clean the house. Like. Have to.

Or burn it to the ground.

Those are my two options right now, before a deadly disease breaks and kills all of Omaha and the surrounding area, creating an army of Zombies that take over the world and Woody Harrison and that kid from The Social Network kill Bill Murray!!!

Or something like that.

Anyways.

The living room is quiet.

And this worries me.

Scarlett hasn't come to check in with me for some time. But what am I to do? I've got an almost asleep baby, mere seconds from being all the way asleep.

I peer my head around and around and around but can't see through walls, and so I have no vision of what Scarlett is up to.

That is until she comes to show me.

And by show me, I mean, she brought in the purple bottle of fingernail polish to show me the artwork known as her body, covered head to toe in purple paint, and lord knows how she did it, or how there was anything left in that tiny god-forsaken little bottle but she proceeded to dump the rest onto my pack and play.

Its not the Baby's Pack and Play. It's mine. And now its purple.

And so is Scarlett.

I mean, nose to cheek to teeth to arms to legs.

I don't know how she did it. I am not even sure how she got the bottle open. Apparently we need to make those things baby proof!

But I do know that she is purple.

I had to floss it out of her teeth.

Somebody please tell me she didn't try to eat it!!!

And the thing is, its not like I leave the my nail polish, or in this case, Stella's nail polish lying around. Oh. No. This was on a high counter, in a basket, hidden.

When I found the courage to get up and go into the kitchen, expecting the entire room to be painted the same shade of violet, I found everything perfectly intact and fine. Even the basket where said nail polish was buried was undisturbed.

I threw both kids into the bath. Stella for good measure. Hoping to scrub off some of the paint. But not such luck.

She is still an abstract piece of work, I mean, art.

And my poor pack and play. That's for sure going to knock the resale value down when I'm done having children and decide to sell it!

I know. Instead of $20. I'm only going to get like $10-15.

But as awful as it is to watch her walk around looking like a print from a bad 90's style neon paint outfit. You know what I'm talking about. The best part was watching her run into the room, so proud of what she had done, open her mouth and smile at me with rows of purple teeth.

Oh my.

Ok. I wrote that this morning. Can I just update you to the fact that after her bath, she went into her room, stood on a chair. And pooped.

She pooped on the chair.

And then, she came over to me, while I was braiding Stella's hair, how I didn't see her pooping is BEYOND me, and says, "Mommy, please clean that up. I made the chair dirty."

In the sweetest voice ever.

Sure thing Scar. Anywhere else you'd like to poop your gross, green Bug Juice poop? I'll be right behind you.

Oh the child runs my life.

On a better note. HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY!!!!

My favorite holiday ever.

So enjoy your green beer and your corned beef and cabbage because today EVERYBODY'S Irish!!