It's all June's fault because she in no way prepared me for the task of parenting Ruben. He is his own child. When he learned to walk he didn't hold on to an adult's hands for balance...he just waited until he could do it himself. Now if you try to hold his hand while he walks he pulls his hand away and looks at you like you're crazy. Why on earth would he want to be shackled in such a way!
Tuesday was one of those days. Hallie was over for the day and oddly enough the five year old was the only one who took a decent nap. June was up after 20 minutes in her room and Ruben followed shortly after. I didn't complain too much because they were playing contentedly in the living room while Hallie slept on up in my room. Ruben would make is way through the kitchen where I was working. He seemed obsessed with the pantry and kept pulling out a box of cereal and nearly dumping the whole thing on the ground before I manage to catch up with him. Then he would make his way through the rest of the kitchen. He usually had a ball or a toy in his hand that he would bounce or throw on the ground. It was cute. Then he started experimenting with other objects. "look mom, when I throw this golf ball on the ground it makes a loud noise and still bounces" then "Look mom, when I throw Nova's water bowl the water splashes all over myself and the floor" then as I'm cleaning up the water and setting up the little table in the kitchen so the girls can play with play dough "look mom, I found a pickle jar in the recycling container. Oh, you're reaching for it so I better throw it fast to see what happens. Whaaaa it shatters!!!"
I pick up Ruben, hustle the gaping girls from the kitchen, close the pocket doors to the kitchen and start cleaning up the glass that has shattered all over the floor. As I do this, I'm divided between praying for patience as Ruben sticks his little arm around the pocket door and screams and laughing to myself because the mess on the floor is just astounding. Since no one got hurt, and it was only a pickle jar, I am in pretty good spirits but definitely drained from the constant looking out for what Ruben will do next and all the cleaning. I manage to occupy the kids, get Hallie off to her house, and get dinner on the table without much more excitement. However, after dinner I put a plate of leftovers on the floor for Nova and leave the room to change the diaper laundry over to the dryer. As I get to the bottom of the stairs (by the way, it is only 3 steps down to our basement), I hear the sound of a plate scraping across the floor. Nova has been known to move plates, but in the 4 seconds it takes me to turn around, see Ruben with the plate in his hand, and lunge toward the kitchen, Ruben manages to throw the plate on the floor as well shattering it to bits. He's upset of course because his toy is now broken and mom has once again shuttled him from the room and closed the pocket doors.
Things on today's to do list included: put a latch on the pantry, use pocket doors whenever Ruben's playing in the living room to keep him from going through the kitchen, and blame June for my bad parenting because she never needed to do physics experiments on our kitchen floor.
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