Its a good thing ...

..that Canon is so dang cute, cuddly and loves his mommy so much. Because, if he wasnt it would be a toss up whether or not this kid would make it to his third birthday :)

He is INTO. EVERYTHING.

I thought Ty was a bit busy. Canon has him beat. By a long shot.

I have said from the time that he was mobile, that I was in a for a busy time. Since moving his little knees in a coordinated way, he has gone from one tactile experience to the other.

The child touches, licks, picks up and experiences everything he sees.

There are no limits to this action. He will touch with some part of his body to anything he deems curious. Usually, everything gets at least one thorough touching with his hands, at least once. He will pick up or touch especially things with texture. Sometimes, the thing seems so wonderful that he skips hands all together and goes for his favorite tool of choice ..his tongue. He has literally walked into the play place at Burger King and LICKED the slide. No pre-touching necessary.

He has licked bricks on a house, the car, toys of every size and shape, floors of any texture, door frames, bathroom stalls ...oh yes. He has also gotten into my trash in my bathroom ...trust me, you dont want to know.

He literally moves from one "project" to the other, touching, experiencing, manipulating, licking, rubbing, messing up and moving on.

There are some days that I feel like all I do is follow after him and clean up messes, trying to avoid the next one ..."Canon! Stop. Stop. Dont do that, stop touching that. Put that down. Get your tongue OFF that. Stop. Quit. Please dont put that ....WHY? Canon, WHY?"

And he is so fast! I swear the kid has a "To Mess Up" list ready every morning. He has to, because he must refer to it to the second I leave the room. The other day, I left him putting a puzzle together (his favorite busy activity..aside from making messes). I returned not 2 minutes later, he had moved the chair to the counter, climbed on the counter, opened the cookie jar, had inhaled 3 cookies and was working on the fourth one. Two minutes.

To illustrate a very typical morning, with promise of no exaggerations ...

• Canon rises, while mommy is still on the stairs to greet the morning ..Canon is already climbing up the pantry shelf. He pulls the Cheerioes off the shelf, they bust all over the floor.
• While mommy is cleaning that up, he goes into the living room and sorts the DVD's in the entertainment center, making sure to separate all the discs from their cases so that they are easier to find later.
• Canon is moved back to the breakfast table while mommy cleans up the dvd's. He eats his breakfast until the o's are almost gone. Then, he thinks "what if..." and he pours the leftover milk onto the floor one spoonful at a time. "Look at that, the dog licks it right up!"
• From here, he moves on to the playroom. In order to find some thing he isnt sure what it is, he must empty each and every bin onto the floor. He doesnt find anything, but that is okay. There is other cool stuff in mommy's room.
• Makeup, powder ..whatever, all over.
• We load up to go the grocery store, where he immediately licks the cart handle as I am buckling him up. Seriously.
• While mommy is matching coupons and products, Canon is pulling stuff either into the cart or doign gravity experiments from the shelf to the floor.
  
• Again, while mommy is bending down to grab something off the bottom shelf, he grabs the coupon sorter and starts sorting his "money" into the floor of his race car cart. Awesome.
• Back in the car, he notices that there are some crumbs in his seat, "Hm, a snack!" yesterday's crackers are history.
  
• As we get out of the car, Canon helps me carry the groceries in..then helps me unpack them, by finding the hot dogs and biting big chunks of them out through the package
• While mommy is putting those away, he pulls the watermelon we jsut brought home OFF the counter...his response, "Aw, MAN!"
  
• While mommy unpacks groceries and cleans up splattered watermelon, he is back to this to-do list by heading upstairs to empty mom's undies drawer, and unload the laundry basket that she set up in the bedroom this morning
• This makes him thristy, so he heads downstairs to make himself a drink of water. This is on his to-do list about 100 times a day, which is mildly frustrating. He will get his own cup out of the dishwasher (which he has learned to open), and use the ice/water combo in the door to fill a cup to the brim. Meanwhile, water is somehow pouring like Niagara Falls down the fridge, pooling onto the floor. Then, he carries it through the house, making sure to leave lots of puddles as he goes. Mommy will find these later as she is chasing him down for some reason still to be determined.
• Afterthat, its off to find the dry erase markers that mommy accidently left within his reach (SCORE!) when she was working on her calendar a bit ago. So, naturally he writes all over the walls, floor and wooden island that mommy was so proud of when we moved into our new house.
  
• While she is cleaning that up, its outside to haul buckets of dirt accross the deck, into the house so that he can play in the dirt where its not so hot.
  
• Then, he will take a quick detour to the laundry room where he will watch the dog food float in the water bowl..cool.
  
• Lunch, a repeat of breakfast only with macaroni and cheese.
• Naptime, is a chance for Canon to be alone with a 6-drawer dresser just perfect for emptying. This , assuming that he doesnt sneak out of the that room and creep over to mommy's bathroom for a second chance at the powder and makeup

Then, mommy has a blessed 3 hour time when the kid is napping :)

Oh, and these are all things that happen at our HOUSE. A good portion of the messes he makes are ones that he comes up with on the fly, while we are visiting others. The mama of all of those, when he found the art box at Kim's house and decided her walls and carpet needed some blue highlights :) Oh yes.

Add to these things that fact that his brother is often egging him on, that we are potty-training and have frequent poopy and pee pee accidents that result in puddles and mass yuckiness (which, to his credit he tries to help clean up :), and that he is always working on his afternoon to-do list ...its a good thing he is cute, because he may not make it to his third birthday :)

Ah. Yes.

Its a good thing he is so sweet, when he climbs onto my lap and cuddles. Or, when he hugs so thoroughly that you wonder if there is anything sweeter. Or, when mommy is freaking out about the 100th mess today and he says, "Its okay, mama. I love you." Or, when he is so sweet to his brother, his friends or Miss Tipany. Or, when he sings "DeepaWide" or says his prayers. Or, when he gets so excited to see Daddy when he comes home, or giggles when we tickle him.

Its a good thing.