We don't call him 'Dennis' for nothing

As I wrote my last post about the approaching close of the school year and wondering what else I had to blog about, it only took five minutes of vacuuming to figure it out.  I am seriously mentally and a tiny bit physically exhausted after trying to do just a little housework around here.  It's not because I have all that much cleaning to do, or that it's even that terribly messy around here.  It's because of this two-year-old TYRANT I have here whose sole purpose in life is to oppose every productive thing I set out to do.  Hence my vacuuming problems.  It would be plenty enough to listen to him forcefully demand 'TOP PEAS!!!!' (stop please) over and over and over at the top of his lungs while he's following me around.  Hey, at least he has manners while he's bossing.  Add the occasional stamping of the feet I can handle, but add in the messing around with the vacuuming controls, unplugging it when I'm not looking, and my favorite - playing TUG OF WAR with the cord (while continually yelling for me to TOP!!!!!) makes it virtually impossible (or at least intolerable) to really get anything done.  

I found myself wondering earlier this evening what kind of monster we are creating in our youngest child.  I often tell my friends that he does things my other kids wouldn't DREAM of. He can be on top of the counter adjusting the light fixtures in two seconds flat.  He's also figured out every child-proofing door handle, moves furniture to scale the gates and is houdini-like when it comes to undressing himself (diaper included) in the blink of an eye.  The other day I came out of the bathroom and he was straddling a watermelon NAKED on the porch.  Yep. Last night when I put him to bed, he was yelling down 'DEWDIVER MOMMY' (over and over - you get that part right? everything is over and over and over and OVER!) Anyway, I looked at Ben and said 'Um, he wants a screwdriver'.  We kind of laughed and I headed up to see what in the world he thought he needed a screwdriver for at 9pm in the dark in his crib.  Well I should have known.  His Twighlight Turtle was not functioning properly!  It was only lighting yellow - the blue and red options seemed to have crapped out on him, so he had removed the back cover and logically need a screwdriver to 'fit' (fix) it.   Of course!

It's come to the point where we are all so used to him marching over to wherever we are sitting and blaring 'MY POT!!!!', and we just instinctively move to the next chair - freeing up 'his spot' - to avoid the meltdown.  It's just easier in the end isn't it?   It's up for grabs.