Someone Toilet-Papered My Bathroom...

And I think I know who the culprit is. Mango. When Jacob and I came home from swimming this morning I found one of his hammers, the little plastic pot to his kitchen, and one of the parts to the play saucer scattered on the floor, in ruins. I've come to make it a habit to take a quick peak in the door before I let Jacob walk in so that I can hide all the shreds of toys before he sees them. It's like a little routine: Hang keys, remove shoes, gather toy remains, check answering machine. There is always something chewed.

After I collected his mangled belongings, Jacob and I settled into our afternoon and Mango came over to sit by my feet. She was giving me that look, "Yeah, I chewed a whole bunch of shit...what are you going to do about it?" And I know she just wanted me to congratulate her or something, but I didn't even make a move toward her. So at some point without my noticing, she must have gotten up and proceeded to enact my punishment in the bathroom. All over the bathroom, actually. Toilet paper everywhere.

I have been petting her more, talking to her more, not a ton, but an honest effort, and it hasn't helped yet. I'm getting the idea that she is trying to get across a very specific message, but the reception is fuzzy. I don't know, maybe it's not even about me. It is Jacob's stuff she's mostly chewing. He certainly doesn't like her. There's so much stuff chewed now that I can't figure out anymore what I'm supposed to do with it. Is the hammer chewed enough to throw out? Should I 'accidentally' leave it out again so that she can just go ahead and finish the job? Is Jacob really going to care that his pot has teeth marks all over it? I'm certainly not going to be replacing any of these things.

Now she's over in the 'dining room' barking at the leftover mylar balloon I brought home from the party I worked at tonight. It has a face, let's all go bark at it. How about this one...the cord to our hallogen lamp was mysteriously chewed (I think it's serious now that she's moved up to the trying-to-start-a-fire level) and Zach has just now replaced the end of the cord with a new plug. Mango comes walking in the room with the plug end of the cord he cut off dangling from her mouth, like a little trophy. Don't know how she got that out of the trash.

Mango doesn't have the baggage or shady past that her mother does. Ginger is just happy to have a home where there's no standing water. But Mango walks around with this sense of entitlement, this air of royalty, as if she's out to conquer our dominion. And if she's trying to break us...she's well on her way.