I am NOT making this up!

I am NOT making this up.

This week, Monkey4 2yo has been busy – she is on her own planet making discoveries at an astronomical rate. This week she has:

Learned how to pull a chair up and get to the chocolate kisses hidden in the high cabinet left over from the party – and she ate half a bag or so of them.

Learned how to open and squeeze out toothpaste all over carpet, and how to smear it in really good.

She’s spent much time secretly pooping on the potty and then trying to wipe her own booty – making an EXTREME mess in the process [ARGH!]

She has learned to remove her clothing and diaper no matter what I do [including packing tape, no joke] and is naked 95% of the time.

She has learned to open the freezer and get out ice, ice packs, frozen meat, and ice cream [also left from the party] and take it all over the place…. Often leaving it out and forgetting about it.

She has learned how to open the refrigerator and has removed grits [which for some reason fascinated her so much she could NOT resist them – I finally threw the remains of the bag away], olives, yogurt [which she has learned to open and eat on her own – how much yogurt can you eat before you die of yogurt poisoning?!], cheese…. All manner of grocery products.

She has learned to climb up on the bathroom counter, open the medicine cabinet, remove the Neosporin, take the top off, squirt it on her boo-boo [or imagined boo-boo] and then get herself a bandaid and place it over the boo-boo [correctly]. This would be really cool if only her definition of what constitutes a boo-boo that needs treatment wasn’t quite so broad… J

In her most spectacular display of the week, she learned how to get the ½ gallon jug of pure maple syrup out of the fridge, learned how to open it, and for some reason known ONLY to her, spread it all over the kitchen floor, countertops, stove, and chairs. This necessitated MANY and varied cleaning measures and resulted in the “Quote of the day”.

She has learned to open the dog crates and let out the dogs [usually done at very inopportune moments].

And, the most fascinating action by far played out this very afternoon. I turned around from dealing with our sweet new foster dog [a German Shepherd] and almost tripped over the kitchen garbage can. Monkey4 had removed the attached lid and drug the whole thing into the living room. I said “No! You don’t play with the garbage!” and then I realize – she’s trying to *take out* the garbage. She has gone under the sink and gotten a replacement trash bag and is asking me to take the bag out of the garbage can so she can replace it. Wow. I told her not to do that right now [baby was screaming, dog was barking, people were hungry – not the best time to change out the garbage]. So, she proceeds to replace the kitchen garbage can right where it goes, and went to the bathroom. The bathroom has a much smaller wastebasket that she could change herself. She went right in, took the old bag of trash out, set it aside nicely, and then put the new bag in the wastebasket. I just stood there kinda stunned and then took pictures. Wow.

I mean, you can’t be too mad at a kid who takes the trash out before she’s even 2.5 years old! LOL!