Anika (rhymes with Monica) is now such a big girl that we’ve gotten rid of her crib and gotten her a “big girl bed.” Despite her physical maturity, however, she is still annoyingly babyish and refuses to actually sleep in aforementioned “big girl bed.”
Every bedtime or nap, she climbs out, lays on the floor by the door, presses her tiny rosebud lips up to the seam of the carpet, and bellows tortured cries for help out from within her cell.
“MAMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAA!”
Usually, I go in between 1 and 10 times to try to convince her to get back into the bed, but typically, I end up having to just ignore her, whereupon, she falls asleep in front of the door.
One particular day during her nap, she had been bellowing for quite some time, but I totally ignored her (as usual) because I was blogging. After a time, I heard her playing, so I continued to ignore her, glad that she had found some occupation other than melancholy lamentations on the woes of being 2.
Finally, I heard silence just minutes before I had to wake her for us to go pick-up the big kids from school. I pushed on the door to open it, but it wouldn’t give. She was directly prone in front of it. I used the door to slide her body, but she was HARD asleep and wouldn’t budge.
I tried to poke my head around to say, “Honey, wake up. Let mommy open the door.” (Despite what my husband tells me, I think it is okay to speak in third person sometimes.)
I flicked on the light and peeked down at her.
One of her hands was pitch black, as if its circulation had been cut off.
I felt my heart stop.
And then start again, racing, beating a million miles a minute, trying to figure out what she had wound around it to cause it to discolor like that. I shoved the door, but she was completely asleep right against it, her weight holding it closed.
Finally, I wedged myself through enough to flip her from her tummy to her side where I saw BOTH hands were totally black.
No wait. Up close, they were more inky purple. As though . . . ink . . . or . . .
My eyes shifted upward toward her changing table, where I saw,
And, through my panic stricken fog, I recalled that inside this drawer . . .
(into which she had never previously ventured before being left alone and un-cribbed with naught but her naughty little brain)
. . .inside this drawer lay a tiny bottle of GENTIAN VIOLET, a tincture intended to cure thrush in babies. One drop colors the entire mouth of the baby for days!
WHY, oh WHY, oh WHY, oh WHY had I not gotten rid of that stuff!?!?!?! Why, almost a year from the last time she ever nursed did I have such a horrible, awful, no-good very bad substance in the room of a two year old?
These, my friends and readers, are excellent questions. As you ponder my idiocy, I invite you to peruse these subsequent photos. 
I should point out that this photo was taken AFTER I scrubbed her hands and gave her a bath!
So, lest you fall prey to the notion that my kids are so perfect that I am afforded of peaceful uninterrupted hours of solace in which to wax eloquent on this blog, well, I think I’ve kind of blown that notion up. I suffer. Oh how I suffer for my neglect of them!
BUT, just to reinforce a previous post, I would like to show you the work of the ever-MAGICAL ERASER (and some elbow grease from one ticked-off mama.)
Also, you can barely see in this post the deep blue carpet for which I have never been thankful, until now. Oh, Dark blue, purple-dye-disguising carpet, I will ne’er speak ill of thee again. Oh, how you and the Magic Eraser have covered the multitude of my sins. 🙂
Any wisdom on how to get the baby to stay IN THE BED? (I know. I know. She’s not a baby anymore.)
Oh my gracious. Girl, I love you. I wandered over here in a mess of tears about exhaustion and yelling and just almost peed my pants laughing. Thank you and thank our Lord for whoever invented the magic eraser.
Bless you.
If it makes you feel any better, I once opened a bedroom door to find that my child (also two, and also “napping” in a toddler bed) had created a similar finger-painting masterpiece… with the contents of a dirty diaper. Yeah, not my best moment.
Addie began her artistic career in a similar incident that I refer to as the “poopsplosion”. Walls, crib rails, hair, cloth diaper and sheets were all part of this display. Have mercy!
HAHA! I love it…i’ve lived it. Katie has her big girl bed, but usually drags her boppy to the doorway and falls asleep half in the hall and half in her room. Her favorite thing to do is to take off her diaper at night and sleep in only pants. If I don’t catch it in time, I have another mess to clean up after she falls asleep. As you said, the joys of being 2! 🙂
Can you bribe?
oh katrina! i thought this was going to end in amputation!! i knew a girl who’s mom said goodnight… she collapsed due to a medication interaction into a heap on the floor… her jeans cut off her circulation at the knees. she wasn’t discovered until morning. all of the flesh had died below her knees. they had to remove it. and eventually i think they amputated. 🙁
Katrina, my mind is numb, but I want to say I love, love how funny you are. I come here knowing I’ll get a good laugh.
I feel your frustration and pain. I have a 2yr old BOY. Just before his second birthday this year, he learned how to climb out of his crib. My husband was in the Middle East, my grandparents were due to come out that weekend. I ended up ordering a gate from Walmart.com and placed in his doorway. For MONTHS he would sleep (mattress and all) in front of the gate on the floor (until we became infested with flees (long story)).
We have since moved into a different house. We decided to not put the gate up in his doorway and just let him go in and out. Shutting the door worked about a month, then he learned to open, close and lock his door. So we took it off. Haven’t really had issues with him falling asleep in his room by himself since.
He does still wander into our room in the middle of the night. But he falls asleep in his bed.
My advice: put her in her room and tell her its quite/nap time. Tell her good night and leave. You have to be stern and let her know you mean business. YOu will probably end up going into her room several times to put her back in her room/bed. We have to tell our little one good night a couple times before he actually falls asleep.
Our little darling, more than two decades past the age of two, was still wandering from her room into ours at night until she was six years old. One night she oh so carefully and quietly brought her quilt to Daddy’s side of the bed and spread it out. Then she returned to get her stuffed animal friends. Just as she was silently returning for the third and final time with a top blanket, intending to snuggle down on the carpet beside Daddy, Mommy awoke! OH NO!! All that work for naught! Back to her room she was sent. I’m sure she’s been emotionally damaged for life. 🙂
My son, not quite 2 yet, would always take a nice long midmorning nap. I always took my shower during this time. A very quick shower, just in case. One day as I got out of the shower, I smelled something. I quickly toweled off and threw on some clothes. as I entered the living room, I saw my son sitting in the floor covered in baby powder with a very confused look on his face. He had awoken, and poured the majority of a brand new bottle of baby powder down the heat/air conditioner vent. Which apparently was fun for him until the heat came on and blew it all up over him….and the entire living room, which now had a wonderful covering of baby powder. The up side to this, after I got it all cleaned up was the house smelled like baby powder for a couple of weeks.
Oh girl. That story’s got me all freaked out now because I really need my shower, but my two year old is watching TV and I’m not sure I can trust her now. 🙂