Mean Girl and Danger Boy

Rachel is at the stage where she's saying things like "I don't care." and "No, I won't.". And the only thing that seems to work is to take away whatever she's playing with at the time.

Which tonight was all the non-cushion pillows from the living room.

So I begin removing them and she starts in with her very loud very fake crying. I ignored it, I've heard it too many times. I know what it is.

So I go over top of the baby gate with the pillows and up the stairs to our room. As I'm coming back down, Ben is at the gate looking at me. I see Rachel coming from the living room, walks right up next to Ben, still crying.

I can tell she knows exactly what she's doing. She moves in close. Ben finally stops looking at me and realizes she's there. And because he just adores her, if she's upset, he's upset and he justs crying. Only his is real.

I'm watching this unfold incredulously. Like a car wreck in slow motion. I knew it was coming, I was powerless to stop it and my options to deal with it even more limited. That was just a stone cold move.

I did the only thing I could, I scooped him up, completely ignoring her. In my arms, he stopped crying immediately. Knowing she was foiled and no one was paying attention, he crying quickly came to a stop as well.

In other news, Ben had his first unplanned visit to the doctor after grabbing an unopened can of vegetables, trying to walk off with it, dropping it, falling onto it and causing what turned out to be a surface cut and scrape that didn't want to stop bleeding on the bridge and tip of his nose, respectively. I arrived home after they all got back from the hospital and hung out with him while Lori was at choir.

He seemed completely unfazed by it, not once doing anything to indicate he was aware of anything amiss or that he was experiencing any pain. Just our happy little laughing baby. Who will sadly have a really scraped and red nose for his first birthday party.