The 2 Year Old

Baby boy will be 2 in just a few days.  Seriously, how did that happen!  He has been by far my biggest challenge of all my babies.  He came home from the hospital on lights because of jaundice, he was a screamer, oh man was he a screamer.  ALL day long, all night long.  He cried unless he was eating or sleeping.  That continued till, well, he still has some rough days.  He wouldn't eat real food.  His language (receptive mostly) was delayed, but has gotten back on track.  Although he is MUCH better with chewing than he was, he is p.i.c.k.y.  Eating mostly things I wish I didn't feed my kids; hot dogs, mac and cheese, yogurt, string cheese, chicken nuggets, penne pasta (seriously, only penne) and most fruits.  That's about it. But I'm oddly okay with that.  See, he's just a toddler and toddlers are picky.  I don't only offer him what he likes.  I make dinner, he is offered what everyone else is offered, most nights he only eats the fruit off his plate and dumps the rest, but he's not starving.  And maybe one day he'll actually take a taste!  For now it's there if he wants it.

I digress, where were we...any how, he was a challenging baby for me.  And now he has evolved into the cutest two year old, a handsome little man, but a toddler none the less.  He is getting himself into such trouble these days!  Remember this post?  Well, it continues each day.  I had a conversation with Trent this morning, reminding him that Hunter is in fact NOT naughty!  He is a toddler and doing just as a toddler should.  Much like Hanna did at that age (as seen here and here).  He too will grow out of it.  Until then, we sure do have some fun stories to tell!

Recently he has figured out that if he can push a chair up to the window (our house is a little odd...we have a dining room that connects to our kitchen with a window, I refer to it as a goober viewing hole) from the dining room he can climb up onto the counter.  From there the destruction is endless. 

Notice hole in wall that opens to dining room....

Why yes, he did manage to unroll all the white ribbon.  

This was all either right where he was sitting or on the side of the fridge.  Thankfully he understands 'clean up' now.

These are my favorite:

Apparently I wasn't quick enough in cleaning up breakfast the other morning.  He decided he'd put a little peanut butter on the leftover pancakes. (just for the record, the pancakes were sitting on a plate, he took them off and threw the plate on the floor) I LOVE that he was using the wrong end of the knife.

Too bad he wouldn't even eat his creation.  Whole wheat oatmeal pancakes with chocolate chips and peanut butter, I'd call that a win!  And in case you are wondering, I did not leave a plastic knife on the counter and a peanut butter jar opened.  Where the knife came from I'm not entirely sure, and apparently he can take lids off now.

And now we come to today.  Man what a day it has been.  I'm pretty sure it started around 9 am.  Carter started yelling "Hunter's in the bathroom!"  I didn't really think much of it as he finds a way into the bathroom often.  There is a baby lock on the knob, but sometimes the older kids leave it open, or he finds a way to bust it off.  I told Carter to go find daddy as he was already upstairs and I was busy downstairs. I hear Carter yell "dad!  Dad!  Hunter is flooding the bathroom!" Trent went into the bathroom and yells "NO!"  He hardly ever yells.  I may have giggled when I heard what was happening.  He was in the sink, had a cup and was filling up the cup and dumping it on the floor.  When Trent went in and told him to stop, he looked at him, and then tossed the full cup of water at him.

About an hour later he pulled up chair to the window in the dining room, giving him access to the kitchen counter.  There he found a bottle of syrup.  Trent found him drinking it, but it was all over the counter as well, down the chair, messy messy messy.

A little after dinner he found his way up to the counter again.  He went to a new cupboard this time.  The skinny one to the left of the window.  It holds all the spices.  He found the almost full bottle of mint extract.  My house smells nice and minty now.  As I was cleaning up the mint extract he pulled out the garbage bag and dumped all the garbage all over the floor.

I sent him upstairs to go play with Carter and about 10 minutes later he wandered down the stairs in only his shirt.  Pants off (they were a little wet from the mint extract) and diaper off.  Yes, it has happened.  Twice tonight he has removed his diaper.  Given the chance he'd go without clothes, but a diaper is a must.  Sigh!  SO glad he's tucked into bed right now!  He is one busy baby.  And a cute one too, even with a boogery, messy face.