I'll push myself up through the dirt and shake my petals free
I'm resigned to being born and so resigned to bravery.
~Dar Williams

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

The Lily Chronicles: Destructor

While some people are known for leaving everything better than they found it, my little Lily Love has a penchant for catalyzing disarray.

I truly don’t believe that Lily purposely destroys everything she touches – she just… ummm… does.  For example, I have never seen a child love her books so passionately (read: violently).  She hugs them, drags them around, kisses them, bends them in every direction, and pulls off all loose parts.  This crate has been filled more than once with stories in need of repair.

photo (10)

And I can’t believe that she desires a life as Earth’s youngest graffiti artist; rather, I think she looks at objects not as they are, but as they could be… she really sees their potential, if you will.  I mean, who wants a white fridge when they could have a squiggly-wiggly blue and white and hand-printy fridge?

draw 1

And who would want a pristine hardwood floor when they could have one with crayon drawings and ballpoint-pen gouge marks?

draw 2

And who would want to be a boring green and white burro when they could have a custom transcendental tattoo (this one says, “serenity” in Chinese).

photo 1 (16)

Honestly, does anybody have a perfect table top?  (Please don’t answer that.)

photo 2 (14)

Tim’s absolute favorite is when Lily uses artistic expression to edit his cookbooks and textbooks.  (Read:  Lily may get sold to the gypsies.)

photo 4 (8)

winter 2014 219

But of all the things Lily has utterly destroyed (not counting my belly), I think this takes the cake:

zzzzz

I am working toward a 25-year forgiveness plan.

5 comments:

Marsha said...

Wow! Your poor laptop. I'm not sure I could handle this kind of destruction. Brian tried to buy me a book called, "Wreck This Journal". It purposefully gives you tasks to destroy the book (ex. dragging it around). I about had a heart attack just thinking about it. It's a book for perfectionists, which Lily is clearly not in need of.

Jill said...

I think you should invest in a big (really big) safe and lock up all valuables and all writing instruments. Just sayin'.

Cami said...

I think Jill's on to something, although it might be easier to invest in a big cage and just lock Lily up until she's 18, or 26 (when you've forgiven her).

Unknown said...

She sounds an awful lot like MY 2nd child and I feel your pain! We even considered writing down everything destroyed and the cost so he could reimburse us when he was old enough to make his own money. Thankfully, he isn't into destroying everything quite as much now.

Aneesa Bee said...

Don't you know how much fun it is to pull laptop keyboard keys off? They make this amazing "snap" sound and then there is this awesome white hingey spring like device underneath that you can pull up and down and up and down and . . . oh! It comes off too!!!!!