My House is a Zoo

...and the newest family member is A MONKEY.

You guys have met Maxx:

Well, that was Maxx a few weeks ago.  This is Maxx now:

So yeah...he's grown some.  He has also gotten exponentially more rotten.  I was on a business trip last week.  I left on a red-eye Monday morning...Monday afternoon, the hubby came home to this:

That's about half a box of Puffs (with lotion) strewn about my kitchen.  Eviscerating facial tissues is obviously a very happy, fun time...

Unfortunately, it wasn't a happy, fun time that lasted, so Maxx moved on to other things.  Such as:

Knocking the junk-bowl off the counter and going through its contents.  I hope I'm not the only one out there with a junk bowl...it's a location that we keep all sorts of flotsam around the house in...hair ties, chapstick, handcream, approximately 78-zillion bobby pins, lip gloss, etc.
Usually, the household inhabitants wait a full 24-hours when I'm out of town to go completely feral.  Maxx set a new record for under 12 hours.

Jeff cleaned up his mess, and tried to kitten-proof the kitchen to keep the chaos at bay.  However, Maxx made one last bid for anarchy by jimmying open the door to the pantry and helping himself to some 12-grain baked goodness:

This cat may be the end of him.

I had barely posted this when I heard  a suspicious noise in the foyer...I walked in there and saw:

That's an old-fashioned pencil sharpener that I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW we owned...complete with pencil shavings.  I don't know where the little turd found it.
In his defense, though, the stinker is as sweet as pie:

"I helps you blog."

Genetics

This year, I have perhaps over-shared my daughter’s cheering season on Facebook a tich too much…but I figure, “Hey, it’s not like holding a gun to anyone’s head & making them look.”  I mean, no one has rolled their eyes at me and TOLD me to cut it out with all the pom-poms already, but I’m not oblivious to the fact that every week I post a good 20-30 pictures of her…doing basically the same things (jumping, clapping, kicking) in a rotation of about 5 different uniforms.  But in much the same way as I was when she was a baby…I find myself UNABLE to not show her off. (She was the prettiest baby EVER, and I have the pictures to prove it.)

Luckily, I have wonderful friends who put up with me & patiently look at all eleventy billion photos.  I even have some who seem to enjoy them, and will occasionally comment.  One comment that I’ve heard A LOT this year, and that really surprised me was, “She looks so much like you!”  Because, really, her whole life, I thought she took after Jeff.   I have illustrative proof of this as well:

That’s Jeff on the left & his mini-me on the right…both at around age 5 or 6.

However the other week, even my mother…who ALWAYS used to comment on how much the kiddo looked like my husband (she used to joke, “Who knew Jeff would look so cute in a dress!”) told me that she’s been looking more & more like me as she’s gotten older.  Some of this can be attributed to the fact that her coloring has darkened, I’m sure.



But the whole thing does remind me of an article I read years and years ago about how children resembled their fathers more when they are babies…so they wouldn’t eat them or something.  I mean, biologically, if you just pushed the little pot-roast out of your veryown body, you KNOW you’re the mom…and you’re certain that you’re genetically invested.  The father, on the other hand, needs some reassurance when the little monkey has been up 23 hours straight with colic.

So I guess I’m just wondering if this shift in “resemblance” is another survival mechanism as she’s well into her teen years?  Now that the whole “carried-her-around-in-my-body-for-9-months” thing threatens to be overwhelmed by the “if-I-have-to-tell-her-one-more-time-to-clean-her-room-so-help-me-GOD!” thing…am I needing a reminder (evolutionarily-speaking) that she’s my genetic legacy?