Destruct-o Kid

Thankfully, Bobble has stayed healthy since my last post. I feared he was getting sick again after a visit to the library play time on Friday a bit over a week ago, but it appears to just have been from cutting his bottom canines.

The lack of writing, however, would be more attributed to my lack of feeling up-to-par. My apologies for that, but that was also something I couldn't have really planned for.

Bobble has entered a very destructive stage. Well, who am I kidding!? He has been in a very destructive stage! He likes throwing his toys (he dented our new fridge!), shoving items off of tables or any surface (like the receiver for our sound system..... straight off the entertainment center and onto the floor behind it!), whacking things with other items, ripping books up.... it's very frustrating. He used to be very gentle with books, and now he's destroying them. I try keeping them out of reach, but I feel books are very important and he should be able to read them whenever he wants. Granted, he can't read yet... but he does sit and look through them, page-by-page, babbling to the characters sometimes.

On the bright side, he has attempted to be helpful, too. He started putting dishes in the sink when he's done with them. Unfortunately, it's more of setting it on the counter and shoving it in or throwing it in... and that doesn't bode so well for our breakable dishes. He also decided that when he's done with something that it belongs in the sink.... like his robe, or a donut from the rock-n-stack toy.

I know this is (supposedly) just a phase, but it's so frustrating. We had a baby gate around the television and entertainment center, but that just seemed to encourage him to throw things over the gate (and sometimes hitting the television) as a game. Plus, he is rather smart.... he figured out how to move it himself. We would suddenly hear silence and run in from the bathroom, or preparing his lunch, to see him on the other side of the baby gate, pulling all the DVDs out. We already have cardboard taped up on our media center to keep him from ruining all those movies! Needless to say, we don't get to watch them often... if he sees us remove the tape, he starts copying us!

I was wondering what my readers did when their children hit stages like this. We have tried telling him no, and that it makes us sad when he does stuff like (whatever he is doing at that moment).... but he just laughs. If we set him in his chair and tell him this (and hold him still so he is unable to flee before we have told him this), he cries. We ask if he is going to do (whatever he did) again, and he will shake his head and sign "no".... but when we let him up, he runs over to whatever he was doing before and giggles and tries to do it again. *sigh*

For anyone unaware of our parenting preferences, we are not slapping his hand, smacking his bottom, or doing time-outs. I know there are ways to do this without resorting to those methods.... I just haven't figured them out yet.