Disaster Area

Every day Joseph more fully embraces his new toddler status. Lately, this has meant a fixation on tearing stuff out of their appropriate storage places. For instance, tissues don't belong in a box, they belong all over a bathroom floor. Diapers don't belong neatly piled in storage container in the closet, they belong strewn all across his nursery and hallway. Mommy may disagree, but the toddler set is in full agreement with Joseph on these issues.


Most days I feel like I just walk behind the tornado that is Joseph, cleaning up his path of destruction. Let me give you a little glimpse into about an hour of my morning today.


It starts with one of Joseph's favorite places to play, the pantry. He particularly likes the recycling bin items. After being awake about 30 min this morning, I cleaned up this mess:


Joseph particularly enjoyed the iced tea carton.

While I was putting the recyclables back into the bin, Joseph moved on to play in his nursery. I thought this was a good opportunity to get him dressed for the day. Unfortunately, opening his dresser drawer to select an outfit, enticed Joseph to take all of his neatly folded t-shirts out of the drawer and throw them on the floor.

Once he was dressed, he ventured into the kitchen and opened his favorite cupboard - the one where his bottles and sippy cups are stored. In about 30 seconds, my kitchen looked like this:



Joseph likes to carry his empty sippy cups around after he has taken them out and I often find sippy cups in random places like bath tubs and the cat food container.

No sooner did I get all the bottles, sippy cups and misc. parts organized back into the closet, when Joseph made a beeline for his toy cupboard in the den. He loves to just take every toy out of there and literally throw them on the floor as fast as he can. He has no interest in playing with the toys...just throwing them. This is a pretty standard scene around our house at least 3 times a day:

Joseph also decided today that he wanted to get in the cupboard.

So just a reminder....these pictures were all taken in about an hour - from 7 am to 8 am. We repeated this pattern (with small variations - the pots and pans drawer instead of the bottle cupboard, my underwear drawer instead of his t-shirt drawer, our toiletry cabinet in the master bath instead of the recycling in the pantry - basically any drawer/cupboard/closet that is not locked) after the morning nap, before his afternoon nap and after dinner (as we anxiously were watching the clock and driveway for Daddy's arrival home!).


FYI- for those of you who have commented on the length of his hair. I know - we are taking him this weekend to get it cut. Should be interesting. Stay tuned!