3 Weeks

That’s how long it has been since I’ve changed a poopy diaper, gotten Ella dressed in the morning, or changed her into her pajamas at night. Why? Because Ella is in daddy mode. I don’t know if it’s because he’s finally out of school and has been home a lot more often than she’s used to. I don’t know if she just decided that she likes daddy more. I don’t know…all I know is that I have been able to check email and surf the internet more in the past 3 weeks than I have in the past 2 ½ years.

Last night, for the first time in 3 weeks (and that isn’t an exaggeration) I changed a poopy diaper. Metti had just left and Joe wasn’t home yet, so when Ella ‘took care of business’ I was the one on call…and she was less than happy about it. Don’t get me wrong, Ella loves me. She’s excited when I get home and we have so much fun playing together. And Joe will be the first to tell you that I can make Ella laugh harder than anyone else. But when it comes to actually having to take care of things like diapers, clothes, taking medicine and brushing her teeth, recently she has decided that daddy needs to take care of all of that. So last night, she did NOT want me changing her diaper. I surely wasn’t going to let her stay in it until Joe got home, so I did what any mom would do…I bribed her. Unfortunately, nothing worked. She didn’t want any of the goods I had to offer, so after several minutes of bartering I finally muscled her down, used my legs to hold her flailing arms down, and changed her diaper as fast as I could. She screamed. She cried for a good 30 minutes (or longer…I lose track of time when we’re in the middle of a meltdown). I was in the kitchen making dinner and would go back into the living room to check on her. At one point when I went in she was laying in the middle of the hardwood floor and using her feet to spin her body around in a circle (picture toddler break-dancing), all while crying for daddy. And as it always is, within minutes of Joe coming home she was completely fine and ready to play. Our family motto used to be, “Sometimes it just takes a mommy.” Now I always tell Joe, “Sometimes it just takes a daddy.”

Grammy Janet is coming to visit today. I know we’ll have a great time…we always do. And I know Ella is looking forward to playing tea party and doll house with Grammy. What’s funny is that this weekend we were telling her that Grammy was coming to visit and Ella said, “Grammy bring Ella a present?” She’s already caught on that Grammy always comes with something special for her. And when we asked her what Grammy was bringing, Ella informed us that she’s bringing her a butterfly. Well, I guess we’ll find out when Grammy gets here.