The Toddler Years: 1st Installment.

Oh sure, he LOOKS all cute and innocent. But don't be fooled--this child is a veritable cyclone of trouble. I would like to relate my experience making breakfast this morning.

Background info: I buy the JUMBO box of Cheerios at Costco. They are served up to him with every meal, an "aperitif" if you will.

Also. If this little boy is quiet, he is either asleep, or INTO SOMETHING. Period.

Ahem.

After serving up his traditional bowl of Cheerios, banana, and oatmeal, it was time for me to make my own breakfast. I left him to his own devices in the living room (as per usual) while I disappeared into the kitchen for FIVE MINUTES.

After about three minutes, I started to notice that the living room was completely silent. No jibber-jabbering or toys clanking around. I grew suspicious.

As I rounded the corner, the first thing I saw was a sea of Cheerios spilling out in a wide arc around the couch. "Oh no," I heard myself moan.

As I rounded the couch, I discovered a Cheerio waterfall cascading onto the floor. He was standing at the mouth of the bag, helping to scoop the cereal out in a continuous "stream". He was simultaneously stomping on the cereal, pulverizing it into dust with his little house-boots. "Oh no!" I heard myself shout, as if it was coming from another person entirely.

The first thing I did was to pluck him out of the mess and chuck him into the playpen where he couldn't get into any more trouble. Then I attempted to stop the flow of Cheerios from the JUMBO-sized bag, and ran for the vacuum. Meanwhile the dog is going nuts, eating cereal as fast as he can. I considered just letting him just eat it all, but there was waaay too much and I figured it would make him sick (just what I need).

The vacuum quickly became full and wouldn't suck anymore. So I had to stop and empty it before I could keep going. The dog was fighting me for the cereal. But finally I got it all. That's when I heard it---rip, rip, rip. I turned around.

Standing in the playpen, he was busy ripping all the diaper wipes out of the box one by one, and chirping with glee. I had not heard him because of the vacuum cleaner running. "Oh no!" I exclaimed.

He began to laugh. I descended upon him and retrieved the now-3/4-empty box of wipes and began to scoop all the loose ones out of the playpen. As I was doing that, he whipped the tube of Vaseline out of nowhere, showed me that the cap was off, laughed, and proceeded to shove it into his mouth. Arrrgh!!!

Fast forward ten minutes, when I finally had the situation under control. At long last I sat down to enjoy my breakfast, and he was looking at me from across the room, trying to conceal something he had in his mouth. Upon investigation, I discovered the little plastic clip from my bag of raisin bread, which I must have dropped when I saw what he was doing with the Cheerios.

There is nothing like the grin a toddler gives you when they are in the middle of stirring up trouble. You can't even be mad about any of it, because they think it's SO FUNNY. Consequently, it's awfully quiet in the other room. Gotta run.....