Happy 17 month birthday!

Mommy, can we take a ride? Oh my, what a ham I have on my hands. How is it possible such a little person can be packed with so much personality? "Mommy's going to need to take a vacation or you are going to give her gray hairs, peanut!" Those were the words of my husband this evening when he got home from work.
Not my child. She will be perfectly pleasant. She won't be one of those kids kicking and screaming in the middle of the restaurant or the Wal-mart parking lot. Oh yes she will! She'll be the 16 month old screaming as you carry her out of the verizon store so she doesn't remove the phones from the zip strings and set off the alarm again.... yes, again. The first time she did it was an accident, but when she heard the fun alarm sound and watched the lady run from the desk to turn off the alarm switch as mommy frantically tried to push the cord back into the phone, a thought flashed through her little bitty brain... 'let's see that again.' As my mother said the other night... anyone who doesn't believe in original sin hasn't had children. I just keep thinking 'where did she see this behavior? what makes her think she should try it one more time just to see what happens?' Other people think it too because they say things like 'would she have seen a kid at daycare do something like that?' Would she have seen a kid at day care pull a cord out of cell phone just to hear the alarm go off? Uh, I don't think so. Would she have seen a kid at day care throw a fit? Well, yes. Probably every day... they are kids, right? So, what, I'm supposed to quit my job and not take her to day care because they teach them how to be bad there? AHHHHHHHHHHHH! What is this craziness I've gotten myself into? My child was going to be the good one because Greg and I were going to do everything right and she would be a breeze to deal with. To those of you out there I have giggled at as your child threw a major hissy in the store... I AM SO SORRY! To those of you who I criticized for your lax parenting because your child was misbehaving... I AM SO SORRY! And to those of you who have parented the perfect child - congratulations! And to those of you planning on parenting the perfect child - good luck and let me know how that goes for you.