Toddlerhood

Our little boy is growing up.  He doesn’t walk very much yet, but I’m pretty sure he is solidly in the toddler phase of life.  I base this assessment on the large path of destruction he can create in a very short amount of time.  I realize that for all of you with kids older than mine these types of events are old news, but it’s a first time adventure for me, so please indulge my story and pretend that you find it as cute and humorous as I do. 

A cold has been making its way through our household.  Today I had an awful headache.  Finally this afternoon I decided that what I really needed was a nap.  So I put my little boy in his room to play and went to lie down.  He was pretty sure that he had been abandoned for life and screamed like it was the end of the world.  This uproar did not help my headache.  So I rescued him from the confines of his bedroom, grabbed some of his toys, turned on some cartoons, and set him down to play in my room.  He settled down and I fell asleep.  20 minutes later I woke up when he pulled the Texan’s night stand down.  My little redhead looked at me and laughed like it was a spectacularly fun game.  I was really glad that he wasn’t hurt and the lamp didn’t break.  I got out of bed to start picking up and discovered that he had been very busy for 20 minutes. 

He had unpacked the diaper bag and spread pretzels throughout the room; unloaded both drawers of my night stand (I'm pretty sure he couldn’t reach those last week); tried to eat our rent check; found a sucker and unwrapped it leaving sticky handprints on the wall and a purple spot on the carpet; unloaded, and unfolded, all of the laundry that I did yesterday; and left all of his toys untouched.  Now it is his turn to take a nap.