Baby Plus Silence Equals Trouble!

When a baby is tiny, silence is golden. When a baby is two, silence is bad news.

My husband Tom and I once lived in Rio Linda, California, in a large old house that had a nice breakfast nook. Our daughter Ariana was two years old at the time.

Tom was out one day and I was home with the brat -- oops! -- sweet little baby girl. I was buttering some toast that morning, and Ariana was sitting up on the breakfast nook "helping" me. She was very quiet that day and just wanted to be close to her mommy. (Okay, everybody say "Aaaawwww!")

The phone rang and I had to go around to the other side of the breakfast nook to answer it. Soon, I was lost in conversation with the caller on the other end.

I was grateful that Ariana was being so quiet while I was on the phone, but then I started having the nagging suspicion that her silence meant that she was up to no good. I turned around to check on her and nearly dropped the phone!

Ariana had opened the margarine container and used its contents like body lotion! Margarine was already evenly distributed on her legs, arms, belly, feet, and diaper. Now she was working on her HAIR!

"I've gotta go!" I told the person on the phone.

I hung up and grabbed the greasy little monster, noting that she had used over half the margarine in the container. I held the baby with my arms fully extended in front of me. I carried her into the bathroom, where I untaped her diaper. Then I put her on the floor so that she'd be safe while I ran a bath for her. Soon she had taken some of the margarine off her belly and rubbed it into the carpet! Aaaagh!

Before long, I had a nice bubble bath going. I lifted the slippery little urchin into the tub, where she proceeded to giggle and slap at the water with her buttery little hands. Bubbles stuck to me, the walls of the bathroom, and the carpet.

I must have gone through half a bar of soap getting all the margarine off that baby! When I shampooed her hair, I DID find out that margarine is a nice medium for deep conditioning. My little butter baby's hair was extremely soft after I took her out of the tub, and as an added bonus, she smelled like fresh popcorn for a week! Yum!

If YOU have a small child at home and you hear NOTHING, it probably means that your baby is up to SOMETHING. You'd better check JUST to make sure!