The author of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" must have had a 2-year-old

You know the classic kids' book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?"  My child is the mouse.  I am completely convinced the author had a 2-year-old who inspired that book because it is seriously my life these days.  Anna is just SO easily distracted by little things that it takes forever to get her to do anything or go anywhere.  And she also has to do EVERYTHING herself, which also means it takes three times as long.  She really is a ton of fun 90% of the time, but boy, oh, boy, there are some days when she REALLY tries my patience.

Let me walk you through our morning today as an example.  Around 8:00 a.m., I hear her knocking on her door (she can't open doors yet), and I go to get her.  We snuggle for a little bit, then I tell her it's time to change her diaper so we can go downstairs and eat breakfast.  I tell her to go get a diaper; she pull three out. She says, "Two diapers!"  I tell her she has three.  She counts them about 10 times.  I tell her to choose one to wear, she stares at them for about two minutes saying "choose one, choose one" over and over. (FYI two are exactly the same, and the one that's "different" has a picture of a monkey swinging on a vine instead of a monkey holding a leaf).

Finally, I pick one and tell her to put the others back, she says, "No, I want this one!" and grabs the other diaper that looks exactly like the one in my hand.  I say fine.  I tell her to come lie down.  She comes over and notices the tag on the changing pad.  She points to it and says, "Tag!" (a word she just learned).  Then she spends another two minutes trying to tuck the tag underneath the changing pad, with no success.  I help her.  She gets mad because she wants to do it herself.  She finally succeeds in doing it by herself.  I tell her to please lie down.  She doesn't.  I try the "puppy trick" and tell her to pretend to be a puppy and lie down so I can rub her tummy.  This time it backfires because she suddenly is reminded of her stuffed puppy and has to go get it from her bed.  She brings the puppy over and lays HIM on his back and rubs his tummy.  She notices her puppy has a tag.  She points to it and yells, "Tag!"  Then she pulls out the tag on the changing pad (that she spent two minutes tucking away) and yells, "Tag!" She points back and forth to both tags.  "Tag. Tag!  Tag. Tag! It's the same!"  I say, "Yes, they're both the same, good job!"  I then rub the puppy's tummy and say, "Good puppy!  Can Anna lie down and be a good puppy too?"  She finally lies down, and I change her diaper.

I then tell her it's time to eat breakfast.  We head into the hallway, and she sees the bathroom.  She immediately wants to wash her hands.  She climbs on her stool and I help her wash her hands.  She notices the medicine on the counter and immediately wants some.  I tell her she doesn't need any because she's not sick anymore.  She then remembers the "momter" (thermometer) and wants to take her temperature.  Luckily, the thermometer is downstairs, and I tell her so.  We go down the stairs.  I pull out two kinds of cereal and ask which kind she wants (she's forgotten about the thermometer by this point).  She says "oatmeal."  I tell her no, we're having cereal today.  I ask again which kind she wants.  She picks Life.  I pour two bowls of Life and set them on the table.  I pull out her chair so she can climb into it by herself.  She sits down and I push in her seat and put her bib on.  She looks at her bowl of Life for a second, then pushes it away and says, "Krispies!" and points to the Rice Krispies on the counter.  I tell her, "No, you picked Life.  We're eating Life today."  She cries for about a minute.  (I give myself an internal reminder to stick to my guns and not give into her every demand and also pray desperately that she'll just please eat the cereal in front of her because I really, really don't want to have to put her in time out over cereal.) She finally picks up her spoon, takes a bite, says, "yummy!" and eats happily.  Crisis averted.  I breathe a sigh of relief.

About three bites in, Anna gets frustrated with her hair falling in her eyes and cereal.  I ask her if she wants me to put it in a ponytail. She says yes.  She almost never wants her hair done, so I quickly go upstairs and get her comb and hair ties before she changes her mind.  I fix her hair while she eats. She eats most of her cereal and asks for more.  I give her more.  She takes one more bite and then announces she's finished.  She climbs down and goes into the living room where she finds the thermometer.  She tries to unzip her pjs so she can take her temperature.  She can't get the zipper down.  I try to help her.  She gets mad because she wants to do it herself.  She struggles with it for a few seconds and then finally gets it unzipped far enough to put the thermometer under her arm.  She drops the thermometer down her pajama leg.  She starts crying.  I fish the thermometer out of her pajamas and give it back to her.  She finishes taking her temperature.  It's now 9:00 a.m.  I already want to pull my hair out.

The bad news?  The rest of the morning was equally terrible, and by nap time, I was almost in tears. The good news?  I laughed out loud probably 15 times writing this post.  I hope you got some good laughs in too.

Now go find a copy of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" and imagine the mouse is Anna and laugh some more.