First Place

Graduation, promotion, next level...whatever you want to call it, we are there. Not only has Ellie entered the "why?" phase in her life, but she has also managed to achieve the First Place "Gross kid" prize. She is still super adorable, playing dress up, trying to play the piano, playing hide and seek with Wyatt (yeah, that can't happen quite yet, but she thinks she's doing just that)...but this gross kid phase has a gag factor that I didn't quite have when she was a baby and I was changing dirty diapers. Even while potty training her, I've had some HORRIBLE stories/instances, but nothing has prepared me for this.

As a baby, she didn't know what she was doing you know? Dirty diaper = I changed it. Accident while potty training = I cleaned it. I don't even know what to put on either side of the "=" sign for this one. Let me just give you an example of late:

The scene is set in my slightly new Pathfinder. (Only 6 months old I believe. Not a 2011, but "new" to me. It's an 05 I think. I keep that thing as clean as I can. Washed once every 2 weeks, vacuumed and detailed...STILL manages to look like shit whenever I leave the house though)

We're driving home from dropping Jade off with her Dad for the weekend. I'm spacing out, singing along to some Dire Straights classics, Ellie and I have this following conversation:

Ellie: Mommy! Smell my hand!!
Me: Huh?? What??! Whyyyyy?? (Told you, I was spaced out)
Meanwhile, she's still holding her hand out...it's ALMOST touching the back of my seat. I have the air conditioning on a little bit, and before you know, this smell come wafting up to the front seat. I swerve in my lane because it OFFENDS me SO badly. This smell...it was...disgusting. I can only describe it as sweaty, 3 year old, not very well wiped, butt-crack...ON HER HAND!!!

Im swallowing my bile back down into my esophagus and I choke out, "ELEANORE LEIGH!!! WHAT are you DOING back there???!!!!"

She replys, "I'm.picking.my.BUTT!" (Just like that! With the sassy pauses and EVERYTHING!)

"Ellie, that is so gross and nasty. Little girls don't do that. Put your hands in your lap and DONT.TOUCH.ANYTHING." (And I'm thinking to myself, if she touches Wyatt's face I'm going to pull over and puke)

"I'm going to pick my wiener too" she says, laughing manically because she KNOWS it will just set me off into another 'gross kid' rant. I tell her, "Ellie, you don't have a wiener." (I said it like I defeated her smarty-ass-ness, but damn it all if she came back with a zinger that just shut me up and made me laugh hysterically for about 10 minutes)

"Oh yeah, I have a SCARY VAGINA!!!!" says Eleanore Leigh Phipps, my crazed and winner of the "Gross Kid" prize.

Tell me she doesn't deserve 1st place?!