Destructo Baby Strikes Again

I have taken many child development classes, and I am constantly reading new articles, etc. I know how two-year-olds behave. I could also give myself all of the textbook answers to the following rant, but I am going to do it anyway because I have to. Also, please note that I am not a neglectful parent. I don't hover, but I also don't let my children run amok. The following incidents all took place within a matter of a few seconds each, when the boys were being relatively well supervised, or thought to be asleep.

I have written on here before about Beefy's penchant for dumping things. I don't remember Buggy being like this. Maybe its the "momnesia" kicking in. We had the great "cornstarch incident" of 2008 back in February when he got out a brand new box of cornstarch from the pantry and dumped the entire contents over himself and all of canned food.

Last week I found Him and Buggy with my wheat flour taking turns dumping it all over themselves. (they looked like dirty ghosts)


So Fast forward to today where Beefy is in rare fine form. One minute I think he is coloring at the table with a coloring book. I hopped on the computer (which is in our main living area in plain sight of him) to find out the hours of the swimming pool we were planning on going to today. The next thing I know he is down from the table and in the stairwell coloring on the wall with colored pencil. Out comes the Mr. Clean Eraser and problem solved, or so I thought.

After swimming Beefy took a nap while I came downstairs to make lunch. I thought he was asleep, when here he and Buggy come down the stairs with black and purple marker all over their hands and legs. (Black on Buggy, Purple on Beefy) The floor to my craft room, which they know is off-limits now has purple marker all over it (guess the culprit). I had bought some school supplies on sale a few weeks ago, and I guess they found where I put them away.

And now, a little while ago, Beefy got in the cupboard for a snack, and decided instead that I needed cornmeal all over my stove and counter and floor. And as I was trying to contain that mess, he ran over and grabbed two handfuls and carried them into the TV room. Then promptly went to time out for 10 minutes.

I have cleaned up the cornmeal as best I can, and will soon be making a trip to Wal-Mart to get something that will help me get the (hopefully) washable marker out of my incredibly cheap carpet that doesn't scrub well. Unfortunately my camera decided that it has a one photo limit today (the cornmeal). Hopefully someday I will have enough money to buy a camera that works all the time instead of just selectively.

I know that two-year-olds are like this, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. If I am not careful, one of these days he's going to figure out how to knock the house down around us.