It's Happening.

I am turning into my mother. Not that that's a BAD thing. At all! She is a wonderful person and is/was a great mother. But. Lately some things have come flying out of my mouth, and a split second after I hear myself saying these things I smack my hand to my pursed lips in shock. REALLY?! I just said THAT?! It's like my mom circa 1988 has invaded my body. Things I SWORE I would never say to MY own kids are becoming standard issue replies to Ella these days.

"Because I SAID SO."

"If you are not over here by the time I count to three..."

"Where's the pen I just had laying RIGHT HERE?! Hmmm? HMMMHMMM?!?! Why can't I ever have anything of my own without it disappearing?!"

That last one right there is a big one from my childhood. There were five of us kids in one house, and for some reason we were always taking Mom's ink pens and/or scissors. I vividly recall my mom rounding all five of us up in the kitchen, and making us search the house high and low for every ink pen we could find, and we were to bring them all back to her. Where they would just disappear again in about two days, all forty pens. I find myself saying this "Why can't I have ANYthing nice?!" about seven times an hour lately.

But I am trying, sometimes unsuccessfully, to look at things from Ella's perspective once in a while. The pen I left on the counter? It DID have a cute little butterfly on the side of it. Irresistible! The cream-colored ottoman in the front room of our house? Why, it's nothing but a 3x4 blank canvas for Ella's artistic expression! The wall, tables, and couch, too. When you're three, there's really no way to grasp that Mommy and Daddy paid $1500 for that couch so you had better not spill fruit punch on it, young lady.

The ottoman. With an outline of Ella's hand in marker.


Ella's table, that is apparently NOT stain-resistant. Which is, you know, GENIUS considering that it is a KIDS' TABLE.


The couch. With all of its assorted stains, spills, and rips.


*Sidenote: I'm not completely sure what's going on right there with the naked Barbies and the stuffed animals. I'm also not entirely sure I want to find out.

So, in addition to trying to get over the fact that I will not have a nice couch, table, or carpet any time in the next, oh, seven years, I am also reminding myself that one day I WILL have a whole house full of lovely, expensive, hand-print-free things. And I will probably be sad that no one is there to spill something on them.