Mabel Molanphy

I laughed [hys­ter­i­cal­ly] as abuela would tell me sto­ries of when David was a baby. He seemed to throw his bot­tle at abue­lo and abue­la’s heads when he was ready to wake up. He liked to strip down his dia­per and run around nakey (don’t all tod­dlers??). He was a curi­ous lit­tle boy with fun sto­ries to hear. 

But, a few came to life…for our lit­tle girl. First, Mabel decid­ed to be nakey yes­ter­day, then found her boots to put on (boots! on! help! please!). I need­ed to go to the garage for a minute, so she patient­ly sat by the door while I went out­side. As I came in, she was walk­ing a lit­tle fun­ny. I asked what’s wrong, and she said “Owie pee-pee!” I checked and sure enough, she had peed—but, it ran into her boots. So, her boots were sop­ping and she was walk­ing with a “squich–squich” sound—just as I always imag­ined it when I heard the sto­ry of her daddy.

This after­noon, she woke up cry­ing a lit­tle from her nap. I went in there, and the smell hit me first. As I approach her, she announces she has a po-po. I pick her up, and her bum is bare beneath her night­gown (odd!). As I lay her down, I find the dia­per at the foot of her night­gown, with popo smeared every­where. Ummm…then I real­ize it’s on her hands. Gross! I attempt to repair the dam­age, etc. As I’m clean­ing up, I notice the sheets. Oh, no! She had man­aged to find the open­ing for the seat­belt in her night­gown. And final­ly, I see the cheeks. Yes, the popo on the cheeks. As I began to clean her cheeks, she announces “Yucky! Popo cheeks!” Yes, I would have wok­en up cry­ing, too. I always imag­ined David smeared it on his face more…I hope he had more con­trol like Mabel. She clear­ly did­n’t enjoy it as soon as she fig­ured there was a smell to it.