Running Wild

     This morning I came upon Clara sitting on Wilbur's velour body pillow, wearing her footie jammies and a pair of cheap headphones she found in my nightstand drawer and pretending to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
   "Clara, Mom has to take a shower, so I need you to come hang out in the bathroom with me."
    "Bash?"
    "Shower."
    "Nope. Nai no wannu." But she smiled at me winsomely and finally followed me into the bathroom.
   While I soaped down, she put one foot in the wire soap holder that usually adheres to the shower wall with suction cups (it had fallen and made a terrific, exciting noise) and the other foot in one of my tin mixing bowls that had somehow found its way upstairs from the kitchen.  She tried to walk, banging and sliding and nearly falling.
     I got out of the shower and she began to rummage through my dresser drawers.  She flung aside tank-tops and workout shirts to find her favorite shirt of mine, a lime green Tee with a cartoon baby on it.  The cartoon baby is saying, "Argle Barble Babble," and the caption underneath says, "Read to me."  She hugged it to her chest.
     "Please don't take clothes out of my drawers, Clara," I said firmly, looking at the mess.  "These are Mama's things.  They belong to Mama."
     She dug through my underwear drawer and found my purple bra while I was blow-drying my hair (purple is one of her favorite colors, I think).  She threaded her leg through one strap and put the other strap over her head, so it rested around her shoulder and one side of her neck.  It looked like she was wearing some sort of body armor.  She wandered to her room, twittering softly to herself.
     Later in the day, we went to the Y so I could work out.  On the way into the building, Clara bucked and thrashed and refused to be carried.  I put her down, and, with deep concentration, she began to step on each of the petunias the branch administrator had carefully planted by the front door.
     In Childwatch, she had a diaper blow-out that dirtied her dress. So on the way out of the building, she wore only her diaper, some red and white polka-dotted bloomers, and her Crocs.  She caught her reflection in the windows and began to strut down the sidewalk, patting her tummy with splayed baby hands.
      After we got back home and I had fed her dinner, I brought her upstairs for a bath. She streaked back and forth through the house naked and finally ran into my bedroom, where I was folding laundry. She made her way stealthily to the closet, where Simon's work shirts hang on the lower closet rung.  She wove in and out of them, feeling the different fabrics, and then she crouched behind them, tooting softly.