Alexis' sole reason for deciding to finally walk when she was 13-months old was that it brought her one step closer to jumping. She's a jumper. A bouncer. A hippity hoppity make me crazity leaper. Her foray as a wandering toddler who refused to stay with her parental units in public was pretty short, as she quickly figured out that if she holds hands with an adult, she can use them as a tool of mass jumpstruction.

If Alexis has one parental unit to use and abuse, she grabs hold of your hand very tightly, yanking one of your shoulders down a good three inches, and leaps. And jumps. And uses her upper body strength to improve her high jump. If she's got two parents with her ALL THE BETTER TO CRIPPLE YOU. She adds a little Rockettes routine to her high jumps and long jumps.

It makes me crazy.

If I had a dollar for every time I have told the kid to "walk nice," I would have enough money to pay back all the bonuses that went to AIG executives. And some spare change.

If I had a dollar for every time I told Alexis to "walk nice" the first day we were at Disney World, we would now own Disney World. Right about now my supreme rule over all matters Mouse would have Minnie living in the Polynesian and getting counseling so she would leave the Dirty Rat once and for all.

I don't know why I repeatedly nag Alexis; it does absolutely no good whatsoever.

But! I figured out something that does work! It's totally Mother of the Year material, too.

It happened purely by accident. Alexis was walking like a jerk, as usual, and I realized that my finger that she had been yanking on all day long was throbby and hurty and really not happy. I looked at it . . . and found that I was getting a BLISTER.

Your kid should not have the power to give you a blister.

I got super-annoyed. So annoyed that I didn't really think before I said the words that will surely come back to haunt me. "Alexis, if you don't walk nice, the birds are going to get you."

Oh, yes. I resorted to exploiting the kid's fear of birds for my own personal benefit.

Hell if it didn't work, too. Every time a sCaAaRy bird would fly or walk too close to Alexis, I would tell her the bird was checking to make sure she was walking nice. She bought it hook, line, and sinker. She walked nice (mostly) the rest of the week.

Alexis, darling, I'm sorry to have used the bird thing against you like that. Go ahead and send me the bill for all the therapy you're going to need to get over it. I owe you that much.