It's Ruby Again.

This morning, I was woken by an elbow jab by the husband who wanted me to go shush the children who sounded like they were all joyfully but loudly playing out in the living room. It's a day in the life of someone of his profession; odd shift hours, odd sleeping hours, odd eating hours. We all have to adapt as needed and let him sleep when he needs to sleep. 

I told the kids when the school year was winding down that we needed to practice being silent upstairs, quiet downstairs and as loud as you want outside. No matter the date or time, just to get in the habit. With six home during the day, it doesn't take much for the house to get loud. 

I crawled out of bed to see what all the noise was about. It sounded like a herd of laughing elephants.

This is what all the noise was about. (And this is the face she gives you if she knows she is in trouble. A nice underbite.) 

It's useless trying to ask her to be quiet. She thinks it's funny and laughs a jolly laugh to herself. First a little chuckle, then it changes to her best impression of a man's laugh, then she ends with a "hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!"

While I prepared breakfast and the kids sat silently on the couch reading, she couldn't handle the quiet. She found a play police hat and plopped it on her head and marched back and forth in front of them. While they all tried to stifle their giggles, she bent over and let it fall on the floor, a most original and hilarious act and she repeated it all over again. 

After breakfast was over, she asked Tucker to take her outside to play.

"Kucka! Side! Kucka! Side! KUCKA! SIDE!"

After about an hour passed, she came in covered in dirt. She had ripped her ponytail out and what wasn't covered in dirt was colored all over in pen. She was grinning ear to ear.

"Ruby found a pen." Avery said, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't know where."

I then noticed that she had plucked out about three of the vegetable plants out of the soil in their holders on the back deck.

But she is active, artistic and happy. Three things to be thankful for.

After an attempt to clean her up, she climbed up on the bookshelf and grabbed one of my Instagram ChatBooks, contraband for her, and ran down the hallway with it. She nearly destroyed the first one I had made and I've put them up high so she can't get them. Apparently that doesn't stop her.

In a situation like this, if I call her name, she remains silent or runs farther away. I have to either wait for her to come back or go find her. I chose to wait for her and grabbed a diaper while I waited. She slowly crept out of the bedroom she was hiding in and made her way down the hallway towards me. Once she saw me, she smiled her underbite smile and looked down at the ChatBook. She looked up again and saw the diaper I was holding. She sat down quickly and laid back, holding the book up and kept reading it, waiting for her diaper change.

That was a pleasant surprise. I didn't have to chase her down this time. Usually when she sees a diaper, she runs. Giggling. And she is fast. She can almost outrun me.

After lunch, word passed quickly through the house that Ruby was going for her nap. Excited kids began brainstorming all the things they were going to be able to do now that Ruby wasn't around to destroy everything. "Oh, we can play with the Barbies!" "Milo, let's get the trains out!" "I can fold the laundry now!" That last one was me, unfortunately. None of the kids love to do laundry.

I carried her down the hallway and like we do every time before she goes to bed, we stopped at the first wall of baby pictures. "Night!" she yelled at the one year old's. We turned the other way towards the other wall. "Night!" she yelled at the three month old's.

Sometimes I feel like we have turned a corner with her, as she is able to communicate her needs better to us. And sometimes I feel like we have taken a giant leap backwards. Regardless, she is Ruby and there is none out there that is quite like her.