Dear Dilly...

I've decided to do some letters to my little DillyBean. Someone, I can't remember who, may Jordan? Lindsey? Anyways, someone sent me this link to this blog (that I also can't remember, because this is what happens when you birth a child.....your brain just disappears) that was written to their child in the sense that they were 'Sorry' for all the crap that they 'parented' upon them. Like, Sorry Dorothy, I don't know what the crap I was thinking naming you Dorothy and living in Kansas. You get it right? Right. Cause y'all be smartypants. So anyways, there's been too many times I've thought 'Dear Dilly, I can't believe you're still alive and actually growing', so I decided I need to record these thoughts forever and ever and ever. So that she has the privilege of looking back when she has a daughter some day and know that sometimes shit happens, like banging your daughter's head against the door jam in the middle of the night by accident, but life still goes on.

So here we go:

Dear Dilly,

I realized yesterday, that while you are almost 2 years old and walking around and able to pretty much 'be ok' without me hovering ever single millisecond of the day over you, that I was lying to myself. I know multiple people tell you to WATCH EVERY MOVE your toddler makes and DO NOT ADVERT YOUR EYES FROM THEM for one instant, I just figured that was like, you know, when you were in the bath, or near the stairs when there isn't a gate, or when the fireplace is going. You know. Important stuff. But when you're just hanging out in the living room while I'm trying to make dinner, change for the gym, fill my water bottle, clean up your dinner, turn the stove off because the water's boiling over on dinner, try to get my sock on while standing on one foot and answering the phone when Daddy calls, that you'd be fine. You know, just playing with your toys. In the 'safe' zone.

Ohhhhh, how quickly I was wrong. See, you were eating a fabulously and labor intensive meal of sliced deli meat and tomatoes when you decided that you wanted 'Dow, Dow, DOWWWWW!!!!' Meaning 'down'. Right that freaking second. You were done with your nutritious and gloriously prepared meal and wanted whatever a toddler wants at that instant. Well, you didn't really eat much, and being the person that was raised by my mother, that was raised by her mother, who was raised in the middle of a depression.....you DO NOT throw shit away. At.All. So, bonus for the '1st Child', Wyatt, he gets your left overs and thinks he's King Shit. So there I go, scraping your din-din in the dog's empty food dish and promptly go about continuing the 4700 things I'm doing at one time.

Much to my surprise, Miss Dilly, when I turned around (in what felt like literally 2 seconds), you had just popped something in your mouth and swallowed.

This is what I thought, 'Oh shittlebits, she just ate a crayon again. Christ on a freaking crutch this girl is going to forever poop colored wax!!!'

And let me just stop to say, yes, yes you read that right. You have eaten crayons before. Shit happens. You survived. But that is not the point of this story.

Moving on. I immediately ran over to you and said, 'WHAT DID YOU EAT?! WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?!' And, being that you're only 20ish months old, you just looked at me with your big blue eyes and then smiled the sweetest smile. You might have even shrugged. Not that you know how to shrug, and it could have been my imagination. But whatever. Then, by some twist of fate, I just happened to look behind you and notice the dog dish.

The EMPTY dog dish.

Oh.My.Holy.Effing.Hell.

My child just ate her food out of the dogs dish. The slobber-covered, small dry dog food remnants covered, dirty as all hell, DOG DISH.

Winning at parenthood right here.

The lesson you can learn Dilly, is that the only thing your mother is worried about when you eat crayons is colored poop, but when you eat food out of the dog dish it almost sends her into a coma-induced state of panic. Not that I could do anything about it anyway, because it's already been ingested, but still. Things like this make me feel like I should be a parent to ALL kids, because clearly I'm doing it right.

I can't wait until someday your child eats out of your dog's dish, so you know the wonderful feeling that it gives you. And when you call and tell me about it, I will laugh. I will laugh so hard.

But for now, DON'T EAT OUT OF THE FREAKING DOG'S BOWL!!! Good God.