Boys are Way More Adventurous Than Girls....

Life with a boy has been more of a reality in the last few months. Until now the only difference between Mykenzi and Camden was that Camden has been a much easier baby since labor/delivery: labor was so quick and easy, epidural took (not that it was Mykenzi's fault during her labor/delivery that it was one sided), he arrived within 2-3 pushes, slept all the time as a newborn baby hardly ever making his presence known, he still sleeps pretty well during the day, he sleeps in his crib at night (unlike his sister who refused to sleep anywhere but the infant car seat until she was about 17 months old), and he's quite the little lover, always handing out hugs and kisses.

He's still doing all of those things, and the huggs and kisses once he's in trouble do help him soften Mommy quite a bit, but he's disovered mischief since he learned to walk 3 months ago. Here are a list of his favorite methods of negative attention (is it that or just that he's a boy?):

-- Camden discovered early on that he could climb up on and stand on the top of their picnic table, which I have yet to move outside (I'm thinking a picnic outdoors is in the near future with that picnic table).

-- While I'm folding a basket of clean laundry or have a basket sitting near the laundry room full of dirty clothes, Camden likes to take articles of clothing one by one and make another pile some 10-15 feet away.

-- If no one is looking, actually to be honest he doesn't care who is looking, he'll take the lid off the trash can and walk as far as he can get with it, acting as if he doesn't hear a word we're saying. Yesterday he actually found it laying in the floor because Jonmark had taken the trash can outside to prepare corn on the cob, and Camden walked over and said, "uh oh." I like that it's an uh oh when someone else does it, but perfectly fine for him to do it. I should have known the trash can would be trouble for us once he started walking because when he was in the walker around 6 months he liked to run into it hard enough to knock it over.

-- Camden loves to pull up the central air vents in every room. He usually just brings it right to you and says "dit," which we believe must mean "here" because he says this often when he hands you something. It doesn't matter how many times I put them back, he'll still walk over and pick it up when I walk away. So yesterday Mykenzi decided to sit on top of the one he was most interested in, and he got really frustrated with her, started screaming at her, and then realized there are more just a few feet away, so off he went to the first one in the family room and proceeded to pick that one up. I can see all of this from the kitchen and he just ignores my directions to leave it alone.

-- If he thinks about it, which I say because he doesn't do this often, he will pull the folded laundry off the couch into the floor while giving me the cutest mischevious grin.

-- Mykenzi also has a new doll house here that's been handed down from my cousin to my niece and now it's here, which she likes to play with often and since it's so large we keep it in the family room for now. Camden likes to come over and play too but he's usually like King Kong over there just grabbing up the bed or the people and putting them in his mouth (people go head first, which is a big no no because I'm afraid the head will pop off - choking hazard). When Mykenzi gets after him for that, he goes around behind it (to the actual front of the doll house) and climbs up on the second floor balcony. A mini King Kong wreaking havoc on Mykenzi's pretend play!

-- When the mood strikes him, usually when I'm cooking, Camden likes to pull all of the plastic bowls out of my cabinets. Sometimes I find pots and pans, cake pans, muffin pans, etc. strategically placed throughout the house.

-- When we're in the refrigerator Camden likes to take out everything he can reach on the bottom shelves of the door and set them on the floor. Same with the pantry.

-- Here's one that really makes Daddy upset. Like all children, Camden likes to climb into cabinets, and the only one with any room is the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Most people keep cleaning products under there, but once Mykenzi started walking I moved them into a cabinet in the laundry room (makes more sense to me anyway), so we keep new rolls of paper towels under the kitchen sink, and when they start to dwindle down there is room there for little tiny bodies, so he climbs in and is working on a regular basis to remove the stickers inside that Daddy says prove our house is a modular and not a doublewide (something to do with the regulations listed, I have no idea, I just get him out of there before Daddy sees him if I can).

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I do not yet have any of these things caught on camera, since during the act my first thought is to keep him safe, and I also don't want to encourage this behavior, which really he needs no encouraging for. Also, don't worry, Camden's attempts at those which are not safe are thwarted from the start now that I'm on to him and know what he's thinking when these obstacles present themselves. However, that also means once one act has been stopped, his mind starts working harder to find another means of mischief. Don't let all this fool you though, we love the chaos and excitement that having a little boy and that having 2 children have brought us!