Mischief (Mis)managed

You know how, in Harry Potter, they have the Marauder's Map that allows them to see where everyone is in Hogwarts at all times? Yeah, we're totally going to need one of those for Cubby, pronto.

As of this week, she now knows how to open the "child-proof" (clearly, this term represents false advertising) latches on our drawers and cabinets, which means we must quickly find an alternative that is sure to be more costly and complicated, before she gives us reason to call Poison Control again and/or douses Cate in nail polish remover when we're not looking.

And yesterday, because I was stupid and didn't lock the chain on our front door, she managed to undo the deadbolt and sneak out, closing the front door behind her. I was puttering (waddling? limping?) around cleaning up clutter when I realized she wasn't in the playroom anymore, and started casually looking around the house for her. After I kept calling her name and she didn't answer, and I had checked the back yard, I started to panic and ran around SCREAMING her name, until I heard, "Mama! Mama!" as if from a great distance.

This is the part in the horror movie where the person on the phone says, "The voice is coming from OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE."

I ran out front to see my child running toward me on the sidewalk, a good five houses down from ours, giggling as if Mommy having a panic attack was highly amusing.

But, here's the kicker: about an hour later, I took her to the bathroom and found she wasn't wearing her Dora underwear under her dress. I asked, "Where's your underwear?" and she said, "C'mon, I'll show you!"

And she led me out the front door and down about six houses in the OTHER direction, where her Doras were laying there on the sidewalk. This, Nancy Drew, means that she was outside alone long enough to run the almost entire length of our street in both directions. Gulp.

Later on, the more comical idea of the neighbors coming out to find Dora underwear in front of their house hit me, but that came long after the "OMG, what if?! Cars...dogs...kidnappers...psychos!!!" thoughts had tortured me for several hours.

When I told Bear what happened, he said, "She's two." And he held up two fingers--the index finger on each hand--and put them on his head like devil horns.

Yep.