Hurricane Cora

I wake up and I can hear the sweet sound of a tiny little voice saying “mom! mama! mom!” I slowly open the door just enough to peek my head in. Cora is standing up holding onto the cribs railing, jumping up and down like a jack rabbit on a trampoline. She sees me and quickly reaches her hands out and says “up, up.” Before I take her out of her crib, I like to get all of her stuff out for the day Cora quickly loses her patience and she makes a weird grunting sound in frustration while bouncing vigorously on the bed. 

I pick her up and lay her on the floor. I try and wrestle with my little writhing alligator who has legs of steel and is kicking them around as if she is running for her life. I use my hands and practically try and hog tie her so I can finish putting on her  diaper. I still have to put her clothes on 🤦‍♀️. Now that I am pouring sweat and out of breath, Cora is ready for the day. 

We work our way out of the bedroom, into the living room, through the kitchen and downstairs to her playroom. Unsurprisingly, Cora insists on spending sometime in every room before we get to our final destination. I decided we should eat breakfast before heading downstairs anyways, so I start to get everything ready. In the meantime, Cora is having a blast blowing up the kitchen. We eat breakfast and when we are done Cora shares some of her food with the dog and I let her down from huge table. I put Cora in the living room so I can work on cleaning up, but, in matter of minutes Cora has completely rummaged through the bathroom and is now removing all of the books from the bookcase in the living room. I put cleaning on hold and put Cora in her playroom where she can make as big of a mess as she wants to. I realize I forgot her milk, so, I tell Cora I will be right back and head upstairs. 

I get to the top of the stairs and my mouth drops open, my jaw practically hitting the floor. The kitchen is covered in Tupperware and pots and pans, not to mention eggshells, flour and puddles of dish water are somehow covering every single surface. I close my eyes and sigh. Okay, I’ll take care of the kitchen when she takes a nap, no big deal. I decide to use the bathroom really quick before heading back to the playroom. I walk in and  I just stand there for a moment and shake my head, turn around, and walk right back out. Nope, not happening, that can wait too. All of the toilet paper has been unraveled, the dirty laundry is now mixed in with the clean laundry and there is a pile of toothpicks on the floor, which I’m not even sure where they came from. At this point, I know the living room looks just as bad as the kitchen and the bathroom, so I decide I’m not even going to bother to see what kind of disaster is waiting for me in there.

I get Cora’s milk and head back downstairs. I barely make it to the bottom step before I notice a trail of cat food on floor. I follow the trail knowing exactly where it will lead me to. The trails starts on the landing and then leads into the family room. Just  as I suspected, hurricane Cora has passed through here too. The VHS tapes are all over the place, yup, you read that right, I said VHS tapes...Thank you circa 1990 😉. Somehow all of the pictures on the wall are crooked, I shrug my shoulders and raise my eyebrows in confusion. Moving on, I see the craft cabinet has been cleaned out, I notice the plethora of evidence spread across the floor,  popsicle sticks, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners??, hmmm 🧐, maybe she is making a stick figure...haha. 

Finally, I made it to the playroom. I can hear the pitter patter of tiny feet and Cora chatting away. I open the door and plug my nose as I  prepare to take a dive into the sea of toys that cover the floor. The room is so cluttered that there isn’t a single visible piece of carpet anywhere. Cora cheerfully grabs my hand and asks me to sit so I can play with her. As I settle down into the seat, I look up at the clock. I jump up and my eyes widen, it’s 10 o’clock. I’ll say that again, it’s 10 o’clock, 10 o’clock in 👏 the 👏 morning 👏. Cora gets up at 9 o’clock. 9 am. My nearly 2 year old, has been up for ONE hour. My nostrils flare and I make a face in utter distaste, Cora is laughing hysterically as she try’s to  mimic my facial expressions. Visions of every room in the house start flashing before me. Hurricane Cora has caused an epic amount of mass destruction and all within ONE hour. 😏 Well, only ten more hours before hurricane Cora will go to bed, a.k.a, wine thirty. I will happily enjoy a glass of wine while cleaning up the debris hurricane Cora has left behind. When I am all done and relaxing in my freshly cleaned living room, I will go to bed and sleep soundly, right smack dab in the eye of the storm. When I wake up, I will  be ready for  hurricane Cora and the mass destruction she will inflict on the house once again.