My two year old

In a wild attempt to preserve my sanity, I want to talk about my Hercules. This child is 31 months old, and in the seven LOOOOOOOONG months since his second birthday he has caused more trouble, found more trouble, and ultimately been in more trouble than my older three combined at his age.

All of my boys have wreaked a decent amount of havoc. My eldest was just shy of his third birthday when he was brought home in a police car. He figured out the intricacies of the deadbolt in the wee hours of the morning, and along with his co-conspirator (my across the hall neighbor's 3 year old daughter) chased their dogs almost a half mile away. I was frantically searching for him along with the maintenance crew from the apartments, neighbors, etc. I'm not even sure who talked to the police, because I was too hysterical to be understood. I was still crying when the police car pulled up moments later. That was my single biggest failing as a parent. Fun fact, the neighbors never even realized that their daughter was missing, and yeah, you bet your sweet ass I use that to make myself feel better. Start to finish that episode lasted 25 minutes.

LB's moment of glory has to be the great laundry incident. It was the summer after he turned 2, I had just gotten a bonus at work and had treated the children to some new clothes. I was working and their devoted Daddy was on childcare duty. Their Daddy had picked that day to clean out his work truck. He apparently left a bottle of paint thinner he found on top of the dryer. While he was cleaning away (how long he went without checking on my babies I know not) LB emptied the bottle of paint thinner. He poured it all over the dryer and into the clothes I had soaking in the wash (yes, their brand new ones that had never been worn) but luckily managed to not ingest any or get any on himself. My dryer however still looks like the Frankendryer.

My daughter is biding her time and waiting for her teenage years to make her parents miserable. That child has not, in all the years of her life (8 now to be exact) done anything wrong. She is for the moment a complete angel. I am however skeptical that her halo will make it through high school intact.

So, that leaves my Hercules. Hercules rocks my world. He is probably the biggest, smartest, and strongest at this age. He alternates between the real world and an imaginary one. The other day he asked me if I had seen his tool belt. I was confused about this tool belt, since we (he) has never had one. A few minutes later he came back with his shirt off and a diaper stuffed full of plastic tools. "Don't worry about it Mommy. I found it," is what he told me and away he went. He can count pretty darn high, I have heard him go as far as 80. He knows the alphabet song already, and is beginning to recognize written letters and numbers. Numbers and shapes are easy stuff. His command of Spanish is pretty darn astonishing, thank you Dora and Diego. He is a passionate tornado of love and affection.

However, sometimes he is more like Hurricane Hercules. Completely unpredictable, varying in intensity, fear inducing, leaving a path of destruction in his wake. Since his second birthday, we have seen the normal upswing in toddler bad behavior. Which includes but is not limited to hitting, biting, scratching, hair pulling, tantrum throwing, and screaming. Then there have been a few doozies.

In December he liberated a poker from inside the fireplace (like it wasn't mine and I didn't even know it was there) and threw it javelin like through the screen of our living room television. Did I mention that the kid has a mean left arm? Well, I no longer felt bad about him having to miss the Fourth of July fireworks because of his new baby sister. Let me tell you, it was one helluva show. Then the following weekend I came home from pricing new televisions to find plumes of black smoke billowing out of my windows. My husband was in the kitchen trying to pry a melted sandal out of our blackened microwave, courtesy of H, of course. Then the following month he stood at the top of the stairs and gave his sister a golden baptism. Earlier this week, I found him happily splashing and bathing himself inside my washing machine WHILE it was running. Then last night, the kids were getting ready for bed and H was hanging with them. H found his Halloween costume hanging in my daughter's closet. My daughter refused to help him put it on, so he grabbed one of the metal support slats from under her bed and hurled it at her head. Fortunately she ducked, the only casualty was a Disney Princess bell, which granted she would probably have cried less if the damn had hit her. H's only statement being, "I am so mad at you," pointing at his sister.

There are honestly days that I wonder if we will all live through this stage in his life with our sanity intact.