Eclair, you make my day.

Very often of late I have been heard to yell "WHAT ARE YOU....." quickly followed by "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!!!!" when coming into contact with my youngest child.

Eclair does things that other children her age do not. Most of the time, when a child reaches the age of ten, they have learned a little impulse control. The totally-over-the-top-insane and destructive ideas that crop up in their little minds are tempered by the little bit of common sense they have gained in a decade of experience. Or at least fear that they will surely be smitten by Mom if they act on those impulses.

Not so with Eclair. Mostly, she thinks about the consequences after she has already executed the idea that popped into her head.

Let's just review three examples from the last 24 hours.

Yesterday afternoon, she colored every molecule of the surface of the stepping stone path leading up to the house with sidewalk chalk. Anyone but Eclair would know that this will result in pink and green and yellow and white footprints on my dark brown entry carpet. Anyone but Eclair.

At school, she discovered a very small hole in the knee of her pants. Probably less than a millimeter in size. By the end of school, her left pant leg was in tatters from the knee down as a result of six hours of fiddling around with the tiny little hole. Unfortunately, this happens at least twice a month. Thank heaven summer is coming, we are running out of pants.

And then, there are the shoes. We have always had shoe issues with this child. She leaves them outside, inside, under the couch, in a kitchen cabinet, under the sink, under my desk, in the playroom, in the car, inside the front door, outside the front door, and sometimes even in her room where they actually belong. Yesterday morning when it was time to put the shoes on to leave for school, the shoes could not be found. We looked EVERYWHERE. Inside, outside, over, under, behind and through. We found only one tennis shoe.

Her choices when we cannot find the tennis shoes are to wear snow boots (there is no snow), her dress boots (which she is not allowed to wear without extremely close supervision lest she destroy them), or her Sunday shoes (with heels she complains about constantly). In desperation, I dug through the closet she shares with Thing One, which is filled with Thing One's Imelda Marcos Shoe Collection. I finally found a pair of old tennis shoes that were just big enough to still fit.

Later that day, she said "Mom, I found my missing shoe."

"Seriously? Where in the world was it?"

"At school."



o.O


At school.


That means she left her classroom, rode the bus home, walked home from the bus stop

WEARING ONLY ONE SHOE.


"WHAT WERE YOU.....I DON'T EVEN WANT TO KNOW."

.