I haven't mentioned Maddox much on here lately. Probably because I spend most of my time trying to stop him from doing whatever he's doing. This 18 months - 2 years is a frustrating age because kids can do so much, but know so little about consequences, both the natural sort and the "this will end Mom's good mood" sort.
So he's into everything. His curiosity and zeal to figure things out is cool to watch, except that it's often so destructive. One of his more recent innovations is to use his kid-sized broom to knock the fly swatters down from their hook in the broom closet. Then he takes the fly swatter over to the chalk board and uses it to clear off all the magnets, which would usually out of reach without the assistance of the swatter/ reaching stick. Another favorite diversion involves transporting water about the house. He's often able to disguise this as "just needing a drink". He arrives in the living room with a partially full cup of water (filled either by pushing a chair up to the sink or using the water dispenser in the front of the fridge [in the latter case, this also creates a small to large puddle on the kitchen floor]), innocently takes a sip or two, and then dramatically upends the cup while grinning. Last week he varied this routine by preceding it with an investigation as to whether the "barrel" from a Barrel of Monkeys holds water (it doesn't). At least he has the good grace to then open several kitchen drawers, rip out anywhere between 1 and 4 towels, dab at the spill, and race off to put the barely damp towel in the hamper.
He has his sweet moments too, of course. He loves music and does adorable dance moves, in which he pumps up and down on his toes and walks in tiny circles.
Anyway, here are a few pictures of him last week helping me clean out the chicken coop. He loves being in with the chickens, using tools, and being outside. So I think this was his favorite activity of the whole week. Other than coating himself with chicken "stuff" this would've been a fine activity. The only snag was he wouldn't scoot over enough that I could get in there with another tool to actually clear out the bedding. He did manage to get some up; but even in our relatively small coop, 1 Tbs at a time is just wasn't going to cut it.
