In Which We Show You Our Bear Behind:

Moodles is very quickly changing from a baby into a little girl. With OPINIONS. One of those opinions is that stairs are a fun challenge. One of her other opinions is that baby gates are for sissies. Blocking off doors with plastic walls worked for about two or three weeks before Maggie showed Moodles how to move them aside, and now I cannot take my eyes off the kid for a second, or she'll be climbing the stairs to Daddy's office all by herself. This morning, I managed to get an action shot for you, and as you can see, she's wearing one of the new outfits that her Nana bought for her while we were in Pittsburgh. (Bear behind, get it? I slay me.)

While Moodles is busy developing by leaps and bounds, I had a parental first. It wasn't really a good first. On the plane coming home from Pittsburgh, I was actually horrified by an act perpetrated by my spawn.

Which isn't to say that I really blame her. Moodles is allowed to ride on my lap on the airplane until she is two - or so the airlines tell me. I saved money on our trip to Pittsburgh by booking Moodles as a ride-on-lap child. On the way out, she was very well behaved, a bit of squirming aside. Unfortunately, the way home was another story.

The plane from Pittsburgh to Detroit was crowded and even with the air-conditioning on, it was exceedingly muggy and hot. We were in a 17" wide aisle seat, next to a woman who apparently wanted nothing to do with children. Moodles was too hot to sleep, and while she remains quiet and soothed in her baby-backpack, the airline won't allow you to wear it during takeoff and landing. So I had a squirmy, hot, overtired Moodles in my lap, and I was trying very hard to keep her from touching the jewelry of the Nice Lady in the window seat. Up until now, Moodles had never met someone who she WASN'T allowed to climb on, so she really didn't understand why I wouldn't let her go look out the window and eat the Nice Lady's necklaces. To reduce her frustration and keep her entertained, I started feeding the child pretzels, which she dissolved into mush with massive quantities of drool and her new top teeth. This plan remained marginally successful until the plane started to taxi, at which point, Moodles got very excited and gleefully raspberried a mouthful of pretzel goo all over the Nice Lady.

The Nice Lady screamed and started flailing as much as a 17" wide seat would allow. I was truly horrified and tried to dab at her with a burp cloth. Moodles thought that screaming was a fun idea and started yelling about the quality of service on the plane, and thus went the rest of my 40 minute flight. Moodles was bathed in sweat, I was bathed in sweat, Moodles wet her diaper as soon as the "fasten seatbelt" sign came on, and then started howling about it rather loudly. After 4 minutes of howling that seemed like eternity, I convinced the stewardess that I could stop the howling if I was permitted to change the bebe, turbulence or no. I nearly concussed myself in the airplane lavatory, trying to change Moodles on the SMALLEST CHANGING TABLE EVER, after which, Moodles was finally dry of diaper, but extremely displeased about returning to the captivity of our seat. At least with a dry diaper, and stripped down to her onesie, she was finally able to fall asleep - five minutes before the plane landed.

Ironically, the plane from Detroit to Madison was utterly deserted, and had working air conditioning. This time, the lady across the aisle from us had been talking to Moodles in the airplane terminal and thought she was perfectly ADORABLE. She would have loved to hold my little monster. Moodles had 3 seats to herself, including the window, but was totally uninterested in the experience, as she was out cold through the 30 minute runway delay, and the rest of the ride home.