When your child is going through some obnoxious stage, people tell you "Oh, he'll grow out of it." Yeah, right! This will be the death of us first!
Some of the stages that we have had the opportunity to survive are:
(1)Coloring all over the house with crayons, pens, markers, etc.,
(2)Stabbing counters, sinks, walls and upholstered wall covers Mom made, with sharp objects,
(3) Spewing forth large and frequent amounts of water,
(4) Fecal painting,
(5) Urinary protests on furniture and in stores,
(6) Running away at every opportunity,
(7) Refusing to wear clothing,
(8) Climbing on the roof,
(9) Dumping all his leftovers in the trash like at the school cafeteria,
and as a final example,
(10)Frequently testing alarm systems on exit doors in public places.
Three emergency alarms on the same visit is our record (he was on a kid leash to make it more
embarrassing), but we've tied the record one other time too. No, these are not all of his "stages," but I could be here too long otherwise. The truth is, that as slow and tedious and elusive as that conclusion is, it does come. We have grown past some of his behaviors and cope with the others. Get to the point! Yeah, yeah, I'm getting there.
(Deep breath). Our fridge and pantry are locked for a reason, a really good reason. A one man wrecking crew frequently visited our food stores with catastrophic results. He would swim in the contents of a dozen broken eggs, splash in juice all over the floor, sprinkle brown sugar or a canister worth of cinnamon all over our bed, or whatever obscure application he could find for butter or oil. He was a food artist specializing in mixed media and murals.
Well, our fridge now has two hasps screwed into it and two carabiners that "lock" the food away. It is not a Weight Watchers diet secret, it is a means of survival in an unpredictable household. It is also effective for keeping three year-olds from the chocolate milk and babies from sucking on the salad dressing bottles in the door. We have a child proof plastic cover on our pantry door, an "idiot" doorknob as I affectionately call them, that Benjamin has figured out, so now we just lock the door knob and unlock it with a coin or other metal object (Wal-Mart purchase in hardware) when we need a bag of Cheetos or some Rice Crispies. We lock up our computer tower too. It also keeps out young boys age 9 months to 9 years. We live in a Fort Knox with throw pillows to make it more cozy.
Cinnamon and brown sugar on you bed...lol. Maybe he was trying to make a Cinna-Bed. Get it?
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