Boarding school?

Look past the glowing red eyes (laziness on my part right now) and the ragamuffin appearance...we were at the zoo last month celebrating our youngest daughter's first birthday. My middle daughter here had just eaten part of a big ol' cupcake we bought at Gigi's on our way there (we were celebrating a birthday after all).  So she's a disheveled mess. Just look at the girl. She looks pretty sweet and innocent, doesn't she? I only wish!  This child will be the death of me.  Mark my words.  If not my death, she will be the cause of every gray hair on my head...they're multiplying daily.

Yesterday afternoon after my oldest got home from school, my husband drove her to speech while I stayed home with the younger two. Pictured daughter was in our room watching cartoons.  No big deal, it's something she's done many times.  Sure, she leaves messes.  There's always a surprise toy hidden in our bed, a discarded sock left on the floor or other little things.  No biggie.  But yesterday, oh yesterday...after yesterday she will NEVER be allowed to watch tv in our room again.  She sneaked peanut butter out of the kitchen and smeared it on our bed skirt.  What possessed her to do this? I don't know.  If you ask her, neither does she. I wish that was the worst she had done, oh how I wish.  At one point she came running down the stairs with my husband's work cell.  He'd been on call all weekend, but that had ended at 8am so he'd left it on his nightstand.  But it was ringing and she was running it down to me.  I was busy with the baby and trying to get housework done at the same time.  So I absentmindedly told her to just put it back.  My mistake.  NEVER let this child hold a cell phone, ever!  You know, unless you want it to be ruined.  She did put it back, but not before dropping it in a glass of water.  She didn't tell anyone she'd done this.  So when my husband returned he was putting his work stuff together and his phone was dripping.  At first it appeared that it was still working.  But, despite the display lighting up (it's some kind of Android phone, I don't know which one) it had no service.  He took the battery off and attempted drying things off.  Still not working.  The naughty daughter admitted to what she'd done and was very unhappily crying in the living room corner.  We put the phone in a bag of rice and crossed our fingers.  An hour or so later it was somewhat working.  It had service, he could make and receive calls.  BUT he couldn't hear the person on the other end unless he put them on speaker phone.  So back in the bag of rice it went.  A few hours later...still had the same problem.  Much to our relief, this morning it was finally working right.  God bless bags of rice!

This day was a little extreme with her, but she's always up to something.  You can't turn your back for a second or you WILL regret it.  She makes me understand why some people send their kids to boarding school. People think I'm exaggerating with her when I say how hard she is...but if they babysit her or teach her church primary class they soon realize I'm telling the truth.  She's mischievous beyond anyone's wildest imaginations.  I love her...I do.  But I'm not blind, I see how hard she is and I worry about her.