Toddlers are Sadists

M learned to grind her teeth this week. The noise makes me insane, plus I keep imagining what it's doing to her teeth. So we had one of her friends over this afternoon and she started grinding. I told her to stop, and something in my face must have betrayed the pain the noise causes, because she started giggling. Then her little cohort joined her, and together they ground their teeth at me, giggling madly all the while as my ears tried to crawl off my face to escape the sound. Little sadists.

M also passed a milestone of sorts today -- she put her sandals on all by herself. And as per usual, every development means a new opportunity for the neurotic mommy in me to second-guess myself. In this case, she managed to her her sandals on and secure the straps all by herself, but had the shoes on the wrong feet. I was torn between congratulating her for getting them on at all, or correcting her for putting them on the wrong feet. I went with celebrating, because I figure reinforcing the try at independence is more important than enforcing precision at this point.

In other (completely unrelated) news, I've been browsing the Celebrity Baby Blog, which is never a good idea. I always end up feeling a little dirty for prying onto the private lives of people I don't know, and usually also jealous of the endless parade of celebs announcing their pregnancies. And then there are the stories that just make me sad. For instance, I learned that Britney lost her sons. And as messed up as that girl is, I kind of feel bad for her. I cannot imagine not being able to see M every day. Of course, I also cannot imagine partying every night and spending a lot of my time too drunk or strung-out to care for M, either, so I guess it's better that her kids are with the marginally more responsible parent.

And speaking of responsible parenting, M has escaped the family room and is playing on the stairs. Gotta go.