2 things

So yesterday at dinner Little Man did 2 things that, frankly, scared the ever-living poop out of me. The setting: The family is at the dining room table having our meal. We made more faux cheese pizza for the boy and the rest of us, Wifey, Mimma, and I, dined on some beef and broccoli stir fry. Little Man is wolfing down his slice of pizza as fast as he pleases while we are conversing and slowly munching on our respective dinners. It was very good stir fry by the way. Anyway… Little Man asks to be excused in his normal over excited way ( i.e. he jumped off his chair and ran around like a heathen). You might ask why we let him get away from the dinner table when we weren’t all finished eating. In that case, you might get an answer stating that he was done eating, he had been calmly eating and chatting with us at the dinner table for about 30 minutes, and he is 3.

So he gets down to go into the living room and play with some of his new birthday present toys. He is settling into a nice game of Simon Says when the air conditioner goes on. He sprints to the back door which is locked and closed. You see, currently he has been fascinated with the operation of the air-conditioner fan. He loves to watch it from the sun-porch or dining room window. It is best when he can run from one to another. He tries the doorknob but the fact that the door is locked stops him from getting the door open… for a second. He turns the key, the correct direction, and opens the door. Quoted for incredulous emphasis: He turns the key, the correct direction, and opens the door.

Sweet Mother of God and all that is Holy, Save Us, Save Us ALLL!!!! Little Man is no longer one to be penned in by things sooo conventional as mere Locks! He is now free to roam about the world un-fettered by our useless arbitrary division of that which is inside and that which is outside. No, he has determined how to free himself from the shackles of our conformist sense of space. Done with looking at the fan, he comes inside and calmly shuts the door. As if he hasn’t just ruined our chances of containing him while we have to go to the bathroom. It will only be days before he figures out how to start the car.

After I was stunned to gibbering incoherence by his unlocking and opening of the back door, he treated us to another monumental feat for a 3 year old. The ball he was bouncing in the living room whilst stir fry was delicately balancing on my fork inches away from my still stunned and agape mouth bounced underneath the sofa that is against a wall in the living room. Little Man walks over to the back corner of the full sized sofa and pushes it out from the wall. Yes, our 30.5 lb, 13.83 kg, or 2.179 stone in weight 3 year old just moved an 85lb, 38.56 kg, or 6.071 stone sofa. Sure it was just pivoting the sofa, but it still was not an insignificant task for a kid weighing less than half of the sofa, and significantly smaller than . He retrieved the errant ball from behind the sofa and said triumphantly, “Little Man get ball back!” He starts walking away from the eschewed sofa, when I ask him to put the sofa back. He leans into the arm of the furniture and shoves the thing back into place.

So, in one night, Little Man has eroded our sense of safety concerning locked doors, and re-arranged the furniture in the living room to get a missing toy. Quite a Wednesday evening, don’t you think?

To Recap:
You can’t hope to stop Little Man, you can only hope to slow him down…
If I were a Euclidean physicist, I could probably figure out the exact forces necessary to pivot a sofa on hard wood floors
I am not a Euclidean physicist
Nor do I know any Euclidean physicists
I know someone who is much more quantum than Euclidean, but still not a Euclidean physicist
I am very happy for the “Copy/Paste” command
I only had to spell “Euclidean physicist” correctly once
Have a great weekend