Romans 7:19 At Work

{Keke, my little sister, talked to Santa about sending the girls some elves--to work mischief in our house throughout the rest of the Christmas season. They arrived via the chimney this morning, and these pictures are of that and some shots of this morning's breakfast. Food on faces, squinty eyes and all. At what age are they going to be mad at me for posting these kind of pictures of them?}

For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do NOT want to do--this I keep on doing. Romans 7:19, emphasis mine

This child. This child has been giving me fits.

It's as though things I thought we mastered at 12 months age, now, at 3 YEARS seem to be giving her trouble again. She does things...like playing in the toilet water, rubbing my face lotion (my one big extravagance in my make-up bag) in her hair, writing all over her legs with markers, knocking an entire row of shampoo bottles over in the grocery store, or jumping from the TOP of the couch-back and hitting her forehead on the coffee table--you can see the bruise remnants below.

When you add this behavior to the fact that she is pathologically clumsy, and falls somewhere around 1,425 times per day, I am not sure how she is going to survive much longer.

One of yesterday's falls happened at a most inopportune time. Before I exercise, I try to get my day's tasks started and the house decently straight (as in my bed made and the dishes in the sink), and everybody dressed...which means I rarely make it out of the door before lunch-time. It had been a particularly frustrating morning with the Dapples. The morning began with her standing up beside her chair at breakfast and just peeing all over the floor. "Oh, OK! Mary Aplin. Let me get that for you! Don't worry about the fact that I asked you 30 seconds ago if you needed to go potty?! If the floor's more convenient, then go right ahead."

As I'm Cloroxing the mess and getting her pajamas in the washing machine, I hear mother-Pace reassuring her, "Don't worry Mary Aplin, you're not going to get a spanking."

"Pace, you are not the Mom and are not allowed to decide when spankings will or will not be administered."

Mary Aplin also managed to perform a handful of the above tasks before I had them out of the door in warm coats, mittens on hands, blanket ready, and Locks rigged to a belt because I couldn't find his leash--All this so that I could take a run and work off some of the morning's frustrations?

There is an incredibly steep hill that I have to climb right out of our driveway. The girls wanted to walk up it (Praise the Lord!), so I pushed an empty double stroller to the top of the hill before they climbed in. As soon as they sat down, I noticed something was wrong. I couldn't move the stroller forward at all. I looked down to find one of the tires was "wallering around on the rim" kind of flat. Ugghhh. "Get out girls, I have to go back to the house and try to put some air in this tire."

As we headed back down the mountain towards our house, I hear a scream of pain behind me and turn to see Dapples, face plant number 435 of the day, on harsh concrete. In a panic I attempt to throw the stroller break on and toss Locks' belt/leash to Pace. I turn and sprint towards my screaming victim and then hear, "MOM!" out of Pace's mouth. I swivel mid-stride and see the double stroller picking up speed as it hurtles towards Pace and Locks, then gets turned because of the flat tire (thank goodness, sort of) and tumbles into the road. The shock of taking the curb flips the stroller, scattering my phone and car keys into the road as well. All of this, in front of a mini-van climbing up the road.

I gave up the run and we went back to the house and ate grilled cheese sandwiches instead.

While the falling incident was obviously not Dapple's "fault," there are so many other things that ARE. However, the baffling thing about Mary Aplin is that you can NOT stay mad at her. Two minutes after she gets in trouble, she'll come and tap on the side of my leg. I look down to the face blotchy with crying and wet with tears and she says, "Torry Mommy" (we've got a little lisp), just before she clutches my leg in a tight hug and cries harder. Over and over I hear Romans 7:19 play in my head as I go down to my knees and take her into a proper hug. My heart turns into a puddle as I feel her real penitence and recall all the times God has offered me Grace for "the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing."

Surely, she will never play in toilet water again...at least not for fifteen minutes :)