crazy

due to a dramatic and soap-opera-like development in the lives of one of my friends (who shall remain anonymous), i have inherited a three-year-old girl for the past couple of days, and all the full-blown hurricane force rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed craziness that comes with it.

i mean, normally i steer as far from personal dramas as humanly possible as i don't want anyone else's stuff to possibly break or harm the sanctity of our home. i'm a "family first" kind of gal, and protect my cubs (and my man) with a fierce loyalty. but when these dramas affect little children, i go all cuckoo. i know, i know, we can't save them all. but when entrusted with said 3 year old for the time being, of course i can't say no. it means keeping her out of some pretty intense emotional turmaoil and family upheaval; instead, she's in the most boring, stable, warm, happy, loved place-- our house. i'm sure that being apart from her family is causing her stress, but we all are trying to keep her so busy with the normal goings-on of our house, all i see on her little face are smiles. we're loving her up one side and down the other.

honestly, i'm enjoying the heck out of this. can it really only be 2 years ago that we had a three year old girl running around OUR house?? impossible. this boundless excitement for every box of toys and every puzzle and every silly preschool tv show is insane. no eye-rolling, "do-i-have-to" sarcasm at all. she BELIEVES you when you tell her she's the very best picker-upper in the whole wide world and picks up the toys with wild abandon just to get a sticker.

my kids are on the moon over this... i hear their cackles over this little girl's antics ring throughout the house. of particular hilarity is the fact that when she says s's name, it sounds remarkably like "toilet." so, s has a new and uproarious nickname, added to the long list of nicknames that start with "the beast" and "the bee" or just plain "B." now she's "toilet," too.

i'll let y'all know how this plays out, but i feel like the longer i can keep her here in steady normalcy, the better. i just wish i could grab the other three kids in the family and help them, too. perhaps this little girl is just who i was meant to help right now... one child at a time, right?