I mean ~ look at that face!  Really, who could stay mad at that face?  It’s exactly how I felt about Lucas when he turned two.  

Last night as Bella was rampaging through the house, chewing, gnawing, digging and pawing everything she could I said to Lucas “Bella has turned into you.”  I got shot a quizzical look followed by a “Huh?”  So I had to tell Lucas the story of his babyhood turned to toddlerhood and the story goes something like this…

When Lucas was a baby he was the most mellow, sweet infant.  He was easily soothed, didn’t fuss much and slept like a dream.  I remember being on the phone with my girlfriend maybe a month after he was born.  I was telling her how much I was getting done ~ I had worked out.  I had the house clean.  I played a game with Zach and at that point I was having a nice chat with her on the phone.  She said “how the heck are you getting all of this done with a newborn???”  I told her I put Lucas in the swing three hours before and there he stayed, snoozing some and looking around some.  He was content and happy there.  He was content and happy wherever he was.  I was able to travel with him in ways I never would have dreamed.  Lucas and I drove to Poland twice before he turned eight months old.  I either had him in the Baby Bjorn carrier or in a back pack and he was happy as a clam.  Until he turned two…

And he became Lucas squared.  He was all over the place.  He got into everything.  He tested limits and tested them some more.  He figured out how to get out of the house and get into cars parked on our cul-de-sac.  Anything I said “no” to he would walk away from it only to go back to it when I wasn’t looking.  When Lucas turned two it was like have double duty Lucas and it was tough to handle his Lucas-ness somedays.  I always told him he was lucky he was cute…

Just like I say to Bella.  

Up until about two weeks ago she was the most mellow, easy going puppy.  And then it all changed.  Bella is all over the place, testing limits and finding the most trouble to get into.  It’s like a trip back in time to Lucas Memory Lane but instead of a cute blond boy in the staring role I now have a pretty blond puppy as the star of trouble.    

Today she has tried to eat a pair of Reef flip flops.  After I took the flip flops away, she went back to chewing off the wood trim on a table in our TV room.  I reprimanded her for that and she snuck up stairs and raided trash cans.  She then went on to continue her work on the rug in our TV room, pulling the loosely woven threads out one by one.  To top off all of her other antics she has returned again and again and again to the toilet.  Let me defend myself by saying….she’s not left unattended, she does all of this while I sit here.  As soon as I say “Bella, NO.” She puts her head down between her paws and pretends she wasn’t really doing anything…”Nope,” I can see her saying in her little puppy brain “I wasn’t doing a thing.”  

I saw her little pea brain working this morning when I caught her at the top of the stairs after her exploration of the trash can.  I called her to come back down stairs.  She saw me standing at the bottom of the stairs but instead of coming down to me with her trash can “treasure” in her mouth she put her head down just slightly so I couldn’t see her eyes.  She thought the thought, with a two year old’s thinking “if I can’t see her, she can’t see me.”  

She is like a two year old Lucas.  So I keep saying to her what I’ve said to Lucas a hundred times “You are lucky you’re cute.”  I’ll go on to say she’s lucky I love the workings of a two year old’s brain.  Her behavior and her cuteness are what Lucas would have been like as a puppy.  But luckily for Lucas I never had to say “don’t drink out of the toilet.”

Oh, for the love of my children….