My MJ has really advanced this fall in her badgering skills. Or maybe it's just the content of her badgering. You see, back in September, if you were to be plunked down in the middle of our living room -- first of all, heaven help you, for who knows what you might have landed on -- you might have heard her saying something like this:

"Mommy, can I have juice? Mommy, can I have juice?"

or ...

"Mommy, can I have cheese stick?"

or ...

"Mommy, can I have cheese ice cube?"

(In case you're wondering [and really, how could you not?], a cheese ice cube refers to those little cubes of 2 percent cheese Kraft sells. We don't actually have cheesicles. We do also have cheese triangles, though, and these are pieces of quesadilla cut like pizza slices. What I'm saying is: We have many shapes of cheese.)

Well, no more of this cheese and juice. Actually, wait -- yes, she does still ask for those things. But these days, if you were beamed into our home, you would see MJ wondering the floor holding her juice cup and chanting, "PBSKids.org ... PBSKids.org." That's right. She says the dot and the org parts, too. She is all about the games on the laptop these days, and I really can't decide if this is a good thing or a disturbing thing. Mostly disturbing, I think. Talk about limiting TV ... this computer stuff is truly like crack for a preschooler, and you really have to limit it, or they will seriously sit in front of some site called "Boobah" all day long. And giggle. Without explanation.

But as the husband likes to point out, "It can't be worse than sitting in front of the TV for an hour. At least on the computer, she's learning something." Well, that would be him justifying his decision to open up the world of the Interweb to her ... or at least, PBSKids.org. And he needs the justification after this morning, when, while talking to my mom on the phone, I looked over and saw that MJ had spread cocoa butter hand lotion all over the laptop. Yes, that's right: on the monitor, on the keyboard, on the mousepad, in every nook and cranny imaginable.

Yes. Maybe we're not quite old enough to play with anything made by Hewlett Packard.

The upside is that it smells incredible now. In fact, this post is infused with skin-healing goodness. You're welcome.

... not that it's a competition or anything, but I think it's safe to say that on her first day, MJ's preschool got the better of this mommy. No big deal, or anything, it's just that when I pulled her out of the car to take her inside, I looked down and saw a long dribble of something wet all the way down her orange sherbet-colored shirt. Great. Maybe it's just water.

"MJ, what is that?" I asked her.

She looked down. "Oh," she said, in her best don't-worry-about-it-Mommy voice (which she inherited from her father, who likes to tell me that he'll let me know when it's time to worry), "that's just toothpaste."

Toothpaste dribble. She missed her mouth while brushing. By the time we got inside, it was that lovely chalky shade that makes any first day of school truly special. Oh well. Obviously, there are worse things.

Like going out to your car after dropping off your newly minted preschooler and hearing this sound when you turn the key in the ignition: "Cluuunk. Cluuunk. Cluuuuuuunk." Then checking your purse (wait ... do I have my purse? ... yes, good) for your cell phone, which, like your car, is also dead. Awe.some. Grab baby from back seat, head back inside to find an old-fashioned land line, call husband at work and interrupt his day so he can drive over and jumpstart your piece of crap Camry ... which the Toyota service people swear has nothing wrong with it, even though this is roughly the sixth time it has died on you in the past two years.

But on a brighter note, MJ conquered preschool just fine. We thought she might be a little apprehensive, but that was before we let her pick out her own pair of tennis shoes last night -- Dora shoes, which are slightly better than Cinderella shoes -- and she couldn't wait to wear them. I was surprised she didn't ask to sleep in them ... that is, when she was sleeping last night, which wasn't for long. (Yes, we're back on that kick again. The mood of our house currently? Tired. What? That's not an actual mood? Yeah, well, we're too tired to have an actual mood.)

She spent several minutes showing off her new shoes before we left the house, and once she entered her new classroom, she plunked herself down at a Play-doh table and never looked back. She honestly did not even look up when I told her goodbye and headed out to my dead Camry. "Later, mom. See you in a few. I'll be hangin' here with my new homies."

Plus, she is CLEARLY already a genius after only one day of school. CLEARLY. At bedtime, she decided she needed to "change the sheets" on her dolly's bed. And because, perhaps I mentioned, I'M TIRED, I tried to persuade her that dolly was already asleep and it would be rude to wake her up in the middle of her dreams. Not that MJ would understand that concept, since she DOESN'T SLEEP.

"Mommy, Dolly not asleep yet," MJ told me.

"Oh yeah, sure she is," I said. "You tucked her in. She's gone to sleep."

"No Mommy," she told me, with a look of concern for my lack of intelligence, "she's not. Look -- her eyes are still open."

Randy took one for the team Sunday morning and got up with MJ when she woke at 5 a.m. ... just before MJ prematurely woke up Little L, who has enough trouble getting to sleep with her arm in a splint. (She had refused to go to bed until midnight. Refused, I tell you.) He slogged it out as long as he could, bless his heart, letting me sleep in. And then he tagged me in for duty at 8:30 a.m., dumping Little L on my lap and MJ at my side and crawling back under the covers like a schoolboy with a tummy ache.

"I want to cry," he said as he rolled away from us, beaten down by his own children. We both laughed, but it was only half-hearted, because crying -- if not for the fact that we're supposed to be the grown-ups around here -- is entirely appropriate. I would have gotten him a box of Kleenex, in fact, and shared it with him, given the looniness that has ensued in this house of late. Instead, I got up, put the baby back in her crib for a nap, the toddler back in her bed, and went downstairs to clean up the explosive nightmare of toys and crumbs that our family room had become.

The vacuum cleaner definitely didn't sound right as I pushed it around the room, but because I'm an idiot, I didn't think to check out the reason. And then came Randy down the stairs, bleary-eyed, still in his underwear, clearly not done catching up on his sleep but on a mission nonetheless. I stopped vacuuming and looked at him, amused. He walked over to the vacuum cleaner -- aka, "The Boss" -- flipped the switch from "hose attachment" to "floor" and turned to go back upstairs.

"Oh," I said, "uh, thanks."

That's me on an almost full night's sleep, people. If I'd been the one who got up at 5 a.m., I would probably have been using MJ's toy vacuum without realizing it.

I know most people like to keep their cereal in the pantry, or a cabinet, or maybe, as favored by TV's finest sitcoms, on top of the refrigerator. We don't roll that way here at the Bunker, folks. MJ likes to keep our cereal in unusual, yet convenient, places. Take yesterday morning, for example. She was sitting in her chair, waiting for breakfast.

"Can I have Pops, Mommy?"

"Sure you can," I said, welcoming a request I could handle for once.

Pops, in our house, means Rice Krispies. There's a whole cereal key one must know to feed my child, and it goes something like this: Wheaties = "Wheezies"; Cheerios = "Super Whys"; Frosted Mini Wheats = "Daddy's Cereal" and so on.

So I trudged over to the pantry. No Pops. I glanced on the always populated countertops. No Pops. Hmmm.

"Sweet pea, I can't find the Pops. How 'bout something else? How 'bout Wheezies."

"Noooo! I want Pops!"

"Well I just don't see them anywhere," I said, reaching for the Bat Phone. "Let's call Daddy."

Ring!

Him: Hey.
Me: What's shakin'?
Him: Not much.
Me: Any idea where the Pops are?
Him: The Pops?
Me: Yeah. Those. We've lost them. We didn't know who else to call.
Him: I don't know where they are.
Me: Did she eat them all?
Him: No, she couldn't have. There should be half a box somewhere.
Me: Yeah. That's what I thought. Just wanted to confirm.
Him: OK. I have to go work now.
Me: Yeah, OK. Whatever.

"Mommy, try looking over there, in that room," MJ grinned, directing me from her throne.

I guessed she meant the coat closet. How cute. OK, let's play the game where I look in a hundred different impossible places for cereal that won't be there, because it's fun and MJ gets to pretend to order me around.

I opened the closet with great drama. "No, I don't see them in here," I said, louder than necessary, as though the Pops were purposely hiding from me and snickering somewhere in a corner, waiting to be found.

"No Mommy," MJ said, smiling at the fun of it all. "That room."

And then, call it maternal instinct, something sunk into the pit of my stomach, into that little pouch where acid churns freely because somewhere, there is a mess that will have to be cleaned up. I walked into the never-used living room and saw a sight not unlike the time when my friend Julie, who was strung out on Dr. Pepper and fogged over from working on a thesis, stood in the kitchen of our apartment and casually chatted as though she hadn't dropped a bag of popcorn all over the floor hours earlier and left it there, like grass seed for the linoleum. (Linoleum seed?)

"Oh, and by the way," she had ended the conversation an hour later, "I'm just going to leave this popcorn here until I finish my thesis."

"Sweet," I had said, appreciatively. "That sounds awesome."

I don't know how MJ had gotten the Pops, or how long they had been there ... but an opened box lay on its side underneath our coffee table and tiny little Snaps and Crackles emanated from its opening, decorating the rug in a kind of brilliant starburst figure. I knelt down to retrieve the package, which was silently laughing at me, and heard MJ giggle from the kitchen.

"See, Mommy?" she called. "That room."

At some point over the last seven days, I looked around the abode and realized that, if any of us were to come down with a mysterious case of food poisoning, the gastronomical CSI unit (G-CSI -- a new franchise; catch it this fall on CBS!) would have no problem identifying its source. I started taking pictures of the madness, and I am shocked -- shocked, I tell you! -- that any food ever makes it to the mouths of the little people who live with us.

So here's a little tour of why I won't be going anywhere near my laundry room until everyone is absolutely out of clothes to wear and bibs to dribble (or scribble) on. In the words of the great Horatio Caine, "This isn't going to be pretty ... is it?"

No, H. No it's not.

1. Sweet Potato and Apples
But it's organic, so it won't hurt the bib.



2. Mexican Food
Covered, literally from head to toe, in rice. How?



3. Macaroni & Cheese, Juice Box at the Target Cafe.
Target missed.



4. Organic Potting Soil
OK, she wasn't eating it. And let's face it: the organic part here does nothing to make me feel better.



5. Harvest Squash Turkey Dinner and Blueberries
It may sound great; but it looks like three hours worth of scrubbing.



6. I Seriously Have No Idea ...



7. ... But At Least It Matches the Skirt.



8. Fingerpaint
A true artist has no boundaries.



9. Breakfast.
I can think of more appropriate words than "Cutie" here.



10. Chocolate Cake
A noble and worthy washing foe.



11. Chicken Tomato Pastina and Apple Strawberry Puree
Hoity-toity baby food never looked so awful.



12. "Washable" Markers
That doesn't mean you can draw on your clothes. The picture has gone missing, but just imagine Jackson Pollock on your favorite white shirt.



13. Did I Mention Chocolate Cake?
Nice enough to mention twice.

You know that episode of "Lost" where Desmond screws with the space/time continuum just by crossing the ocean?

I'm pretty sure we screwed up the parent/child dimension by reversing door knobs.

So the toddler was tucked in, and locked in, for her own safety until we can get her to kick the midnight roaming habit. Randy went to his office to get some work done; I went downstairs to watch ... (wait for it) ... TV, secure in the knowledge that we had switched the inside door lock to the outside, that our traveler would be grounded until the morning. No gates, no knob covers, just a screwdriver. That's all it took.

Ha, ha, ha! Cue the maniacal laughter. What fools!

Here she comes, padding down the steps, a vision in her light blue footie PJs with white puffy clouds and sheepies all over. Prison uniforms are so cute these days.

"Hi Mommy."

"Uh, hi baby," I said, looking at my pint-sized Houdini with remarkable calm, given that she was COMPLETELY LOCKED IN HER ROOM 10 MINUTES EARLIER.

Where will the madness end, people? I ask you: Where?

"Did Daddy let you out?" I asked her.

"No, I play with my doll house." And off she went to pretend she was the mommy in her Loving Family Twins Dollhouse. (Or is it a townhouse? Dolls are so chic and urban these days, it's hard to keep up.)

Meanwhile, I called Randy on the intercom upstairs, all business-like, and told him we had a jail-break situation. "Nooo," he groaned. "How is that even possible?" He went in to inspect the escape site, and as I listened to the thumping and pounding noises coming from MJ's room upstairs -- was he kicking the crap out of the door as punishment? I didn't know -- I considered what might be causing this hair-pulling behavior. Behavior that, as I looked at the mommy doll's appearance, I realized was starting to affect even the sanity of MJ's pretend parents.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Could this be happening because my child is about 65 percent organic these days, since I got scared into switching to hormone-free dairy foods to ward off early puberty and hence, early dating? (I will, indeed, pay $12 a gallon for milk if it means less trouble for me a decade from now.) Kids can be a little OCD sometimes; maybe she's taking the whole cage-free thing a little too far.

TWHACK! TWHACK! TWHACK!

Before I had a chance to conjure any more ridiculous notions, MJ stopped playing, became wide-eyed, and said, "Mommy, that noise ... what is it? It's scary."

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

"Oh, honey, it's nothing. It's just Daddy. He's trying to fix your door."

She wasn't convinced. "I go up and see," she said.

"OK, dear," I said, the way you do when someone is being naive and cute, "you go help Daddy."

I heard her little footsteps stop at her door. And then I heard her crying, and this:

"I can't get in! Daddy, help! I can't get in!"

"I know!" came the reply from the other side of her door, "I can't get out!"

My husband, ladies and gentlemen: beaten at his own game by a toddler. Locked in by his own lock, a lock that could not contain a three-year-old. Was I rolling on the floor with laughter? Yes, yes I was. For a prolonged period of time, I might add. But in my mind, I was already putting bars on the windows.

Pop quiz! Can anyone identify the item in the picture above? Anybody? Anybody?

If you answered: "A dismantled childproof doorknob cover, as found inside a toddler's room," you are almost right.

It is also: "An accurate representation of her mother's sanity: broken, beaten, left for dead, Canvas No. 3."

The good people at Safety 1st claim the following about their product:

1. Glows in the dark for nighttime use. (Not helpful, Safety 1st; this only helps her find the contraption better so she can sneak out and run to the bathroom to "wash her hands" at 3:47 freakin' a.m.)
2. Access to door knob for easier grip. (Only if by "grip" you mean "destruction.")
3. Sleek modern design blends in with home decor. (You clearly have not seen my home, wherein the words "sleek" and "modern" are drowned by "cluttered" and "oh-my-God-what-is-that-on-the-couch?"

Nowhere on the package does it claim that the doorknob cover will actually keep your child out of any particular room, so I guess we had this one coming. After previous attempts to make us go bat crazy, MJ escaped again Thursday morning. So, having tried all the usual methods to solve the Great Hide-and-Go-Freak of 2008 -- doors, gates, knob covers and childish pleading (ours, not hers) -- we turned to the health care system, which has always been so reliable in the past when explaining phenomena such as nighttime crying and green poop.

There had to be a medical reason for this nonsense. Off to the pediatrician! C'mon, baby, mama needs an ear infection!

Vitals: Temperature of 99.1 -- low-grade! There's a chance ...

I stood on the sidelines as he peeked inside Ear No. 1 for the gremlin that was causing her night prowling. I felt like I was watching the results portion of a reality show, anticipation coursing through my veins.

"That one looks good." Crap.

No. 2! Still time ... "This one looks good, too."

I just stood in silence, the silly little mother who can't keep her kid in her room at night, denied an antibiotic to cure bad behavior. Double crap.

Dr. Joe gave MJ a firm little lecture on why should she stay in her bed: it was the safest place to be; she needed her rest; Mommy and Daddy and all the people she loves will be right there when she gets up in the morning. I looked at my child in her blue-flowered shirt, her white capri pants and her sweet little sandals, that fly-away blond hair of hers sitting obediently on her head for once -- the picture of all that is angelic -- and considered whether his talk would work, whether her shy nod agreeing to stop the roaming would actually take.

Not a chance. Friday morning, 4 a.m., Daddy: "MJ, what are you doing in here?"

"I washing my hands!" she said.

Me too, said her mother. Me too.

MJ is sleeping over at her grandparents' Saturday night with her cousins, M. & N. The phone rings ...

My Imagination: Oh no. I forgot to pack something. I forgot the diapers.

Me: "Hello..."

Grammy: "Uh, MJ can eat pecans, right?"

Me: "Oh. Yeah. Sure."

Grammy: "Like, pecan halves?"

Me: "Yeah."

Grammy: "OK. Well, I thought I better check first."

Me: "Sure. No problem. I think."

Click.

Imagination: Huh. She has had pecans before, right?

Me, to husband: "MJ has had pecans before, right?"

Husband: "Oh yeah. Loads."

Me: "OK. That's what I thought."

Imagination: Has she, though? I can't remember. Oh no. What if she hasn't?

(pause)

Imagination: oh no...

Me, to H.: "Are you sure? You've given them to her?"

Husband: "Yeah, yeah. she'll be fine."

Me: "Right."

Imagination: Still though. I should have packed the Benadryl just in case. What if she needs it for something else? I can just see her little face swelling up like that time the dog stuck his nose in a wasp nest.

Me, to husband: "I should have packed the Benadryl."

Husband, looking up from Popular Science magazine: "You didn't pack the Benadryl? Why didn't you pack the Benadryl?"

Imagination: Great. Now I really feel bad. Why didn't I pack the Benadryl? I remembered the Tylenol. The ear thermometer. The little coverings for the ear thermometer. The toothbrush. The diaper cream. Wait -- did I get the diaper cream? Yeah, yeah. Definitely did that one.

Husband: "Well I'm sure your sister remembered to pack some for M. & N. MJ could borrow theirs if she needed to."

Imagination: Well, that's true. But of course, now, every time she goes to visit, Grammy will say, "Did you remember the Benadryl? Because last time we had to borrow your sister's. Which is fine. But you really should remember to pack yours. What if there's an emergency?"

Imagination: Crap. There's got to be a way around this. Someone else to blame.

Me, to H: "Why didn't you remind me to pack the Benadryl? Why do I have to remember everything?"

Husband, robotically, not averting eyes from Mythbusters: "I'm sorry."

Me: "Well, I hope you're happy."

Imagination: Wait a minute. Can you even give toddlers Benadryl anymore? Was that on the list of cold medicines that are dangerous? [sigh] Crap. Should I call over and tell them not to give MJ any of M. & N.'s Benadryl, in the event she has an allergic reaction to ... anything at all, over the next 15 hours?

Me, picking up the phone ...

Husband: "Put the phone down."

Imagination: Seriously. Listen to him. I'm tired.

Me: [sigh] "Fine."