appetite for destruction

What has happened to my darling, docile daughter? She has mastered walking and morphed, seemingly overnight, into a stubborn she-devil. It’s crazy to see how radically her personality has changed now that she can get into everything. She naps less, she wakes early, every waking moment must be spent exploring. Maybe all those months that I thought she was so sweet natured and calm she was just watching, biding her time for this moment when she could toddle into all the big no’s of the house. The cabinet under the sink where all the cleaning supplies are, most are earth friendly but they could still do a number on Oona. When I put a pressure gate up to block the kitchen off Oona falls on the floor wailing for a while before calming rising and teething on the gate in protest. Stairs? I must climb them. Electrical outlet? My fingers need to go there. The tv cabinet? You can’t shut all those wonderful buttons and knobs away from me. Oh, what else... The kitty litter, the kitties water bowl, basically anything kitty related. For that matter, anything put just out of her reach. She will lean, stretch, kick, grunt, scream in protest. She’ll do her darnedest to reach the object placed in the ‘no Oona zone’. She loves to knock at the gate leg table in our living room, trying to shake it hard enough to topple the light sitting on top. But her absolute favorite activity these days is to pull books off our bookcases in the living room. Toby thinks it’s wonderful. He’s convinced that she’s a bibliophile at 14 months and will be reading before she’s two. He fails to notice the look of glee when she tears a book off the shelf and throws it on the ground. She’s just looking to destroy any sense of order in the house (currently there isn’t much) the same way she loves to ransack anything that Owen is involved with – legos, blocks, game, it doesn’t matter she’s reached the destruction milestone. My day is spent two steps behind her hunched over and ready to turn her towards safety, relishing those calm moments when she wants to smother me in kisses. I don’t remember Owen being so headstrong. Oh God, when does this end or is this just the beginning of a whole new reality?