A New Reign of Terror

A new reign of terror has begun. In the week and a half since I installed baby gates, Gus has had to turn to his creative side to wreak havoc on this house...and my sanity. I'm trying really hard not to stifle his creativity and independence but I refuse to let him trash the house as a recreational activity.

He really is an agreeable baby..."You locked me out of all the fun places so I will adapt!" In the last week and a half he has learned to increase his reach. Since all the fun stuff is up high, he has learned to climb a little. He can now reach about eight inches of our dining room table by simultaneously doing a pull up and swing his feet over to catch a dining room chair to free up one hand for grabbing. Practical implications of this are...he can pull the high chair off the table onto his head, he can get to a beverage left on the table...or food...or coins...or paperclips...or mail...or books...or candles (luckily it wasn't lit!).

He has learned that walking has a lot of potential for increasing his speed and is diligently practicing that. He can now successfully string together about eight steps at a time.

He has learned to operate the radio in his room. He turns it on, blasts the volume and sits in front of it and wails along with the music.

He has learned the joys of smashing smashable foods with his sippy cup, mostly cheerios and animal crackers into little specks of edible powder. Once he has powdered his food he then has the option of licking his fingers and picking up the powder with his spit or sprinkling the carpet with the powder. The ants and cats are a big fan of this activity and we now get to vacuum a couple times a day.

He has earned the love of the cats who suffer so much abuse (I mean love!) at his hands by playing the you lick it, then I lick it, then you lick it, then I lick it game with his food. Gross.

He has figured out how to get around the babyproofing on the entertainment center. He also likes to chew on DVD's.

I had him in the office BRIEFLY with me and he managed to bite a glass ball Christmas ornament in two and lick all the paint off. No he didn't cut himself, yes I am glad I put the Christmas tree behind a gate.

He can open the front closet and dig your salt covered boots out and chew on the soles.

He likes to fold the pages of his books. This is a welcome change from the ripping the pages out and eating them phase but it is a little weird.

And of course, there is the very fun pull all the wipes out of the box one by one game, but again, compared to other things he could be doing, that is relatively easy to deal with so I just make sure there aren't more than an inch or so of wipes in the box in the living room.

The joy he gets from destruction is so real and infectious that it's hard to be mad. My current schedule goes something like this:

Wake up
Change a dirty diaper while setting boundaries about when it's okay to stick your hands in your diaper (wait till after I wipe).
Set boundaries about tooth brush etiquette (no, you can't put my toothbrush in your mouth, or the kitty's mouth).
Set boundaries about food behavior (taking food out of your mouth and throwing it at the cats is bad, especially when it is cereal).
Put him in the kitchen with me while I eat, clean the kitchen, do dishes and start dinner.
Empty the washer of all the recycling that he has transferred from the recycling bin to the washer.
Put him in the living room to play while I work for an hour.
Come survey the destruction.
That puts us up to about morning nap time. I would continue, but considering my morning, I think I will get too depressed if I think about the rest of the day in too much detail.

This is for those of you who have children who are a little older, who talk back, have attitudes and all the other fun stuff that is in store for us down the road. I hope you enjoy hearing about Gus's antics and remembering when your kids were this age and you would seriously pay a babysitter just so you could have a cup of coffee in peace without him trying to grab it and dump it on his head, or burn himself by sticking his hand in it and sloshing it all over the both of you. I hope you enjoy it when I tell you this morning, I put on my coat, hat and boots, took a dining room chair out on my porch that has six inches of snow on it so that I could enjoy my coffee in peace. I hope you remember, I hope that you laugh, and I hope that you take pity on me and volunteer to take him somewhere, anywhere, away from here. Should that ever happen, I have big plans...I'm gonna take a nap!