Parenting is messy. Teenagers are messy. Tweens are messy. Babies are messiest. Babies do it on purpose.

Those cute faces and endearing grins do nothing but hide their impishness. Inside those little heads covered by tousled curls (or peach fuzz), the wheels of mischief are turning.

Don't believe those cute noises they make, either. "Blub blub bub bub, bayBEE."

Translation: "Ooh! Mommy's chocolate stash!"

"Baba? Baba ba ba ba ba ba." (Shriek of laughter.)

Translation: "Why is Mommy in the corner blowing raspberries? Mommy's funny."

Not to get off the subject, but I no longer feed my dog. I don't have to. Bethany does it for me. I feed her, she feeds him. 90% of whatever I put on her highchair tray winds up on the floor almost immediately. If she likes what I've given her, she'll eat some then drop the rest. If she hates what I give her, the pieces fall to the floor (with her help) faster than I can replace them. If she doesn't recognize what I've given her, ditto.

Max, our cocker spaniel, used to sit beneath the magic cutting board in the kitchen while I made dinner. Occasionally, a tasty morsel would fall from the sky and plop at his feet. He was in heaven.

He's a little smarter now. Why wait for me to knock an occasional piece of something onto the floor when Bethany will feed him her entire breakfast, lunch, or dinner? So there he sits, eating graham crackers, ravioli, peanut butter and jelly, peas and carrots. He turns up his nose at nothing but bananas.

The other night I made one of her favorite meals: pasta with a cheese sauce. My mistake was using the little seashell-shaped pasta pieces instead of elbow macaroni. Because she didn't recognize them, she wouldn't keep them in her mouth. She spit each piece into her hand (or onto her shirt) before dropping them on the floor. I stopped trying to feed her myself and just put a few on the tray, thinking maybe those would find their way into her mouth. But they fell anyway: plop, plop, plop.

A side note: I'm thinking that someday she'll make a good bush pilot. You know, the ones who drop supplies to missionaries or scientists and then make difficult landings on tiny air strips. I say this because of how she drops her food. She leans over the side of the chair (like looking out the window), grabs a piece of food (the package of supplies), eyes the floor (looks for a good landing spot), and drops it precisely where she wants it to land (bingo!).

Tired and hungry myself, I decided to also dump her peas and carrots on the tray. At least she'd be entertained while I grabbed 2 minutes to eat my own dinner.

I tried to eat. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her dropping the veggies on the floor, and I grimaced. I thought of friends or relatives stopping by unannounced and how embarrassed I would be if they saw the mess and me sitting there doing nothing about it. I reached for her hand just as she dropped another pea on the floor. "No, Bethany...STOP. No more dropping food on the floor."

Ooh, she got angry. That's like extremely frustrated by choice. In one very determined and deliberate movement, she pulled her hand out of mine, reached over, picked up the perfect little green missile, and fired it straight at me with an angry grunt. I ducked. She missed. Her siblings laughed. So did she.

Dinner was over.

Ahead of me faced the daunting task of cleaning up the messes: the one on the baby, and the one below the baby. I could handle Bethany, but the floor?

"Oh, Max! Here, boy!"

Oh, and did I mention that it's been months since I've had to mop?