Smart and Naughty - What a combo!

Connor is one quick cookie! This is a video of him stacking his rings over and over again. He has been doing it for months so for his birthday he got this set of stacking rings which have a much smaller hole and require a lot more accuracy. He has had no trouble. He stacks them up and then dumps them over so he can start again. He does the same thing with his nesting/stacking cups. He used to just put them inside one another but now he has begun to turn them over and make towers like Mommy & Daddy do. The greatest part is when he claps with joy after he is finished!





As for being too smart for his own good, the boy has a few tricks up his sleeve. He loves the Christmas tree. And who wouldn't? There are lots of shiny pretty things to play with! But I have worked diligently to teach him not to touch it. He is learning. He knows he is not supposed to touch it but sometimes temptation is just to hard to withstand and he caves. His little fingers get thumped and then there are tears. It's a painful process. Anyhow, the point is that he knows what he is not supposed to do. He will stand at arms length from the tree and turn and look at me as if to challenge me. "Are you going to do anything if I touch it this time, Mom?" But lately instead of grabbing something, he takes a toy (or this morning it was a hanger) and throws it at the tree. He has figured out that he is technically not touching the tree but things still shake and sparkle if he throws something at it. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. Who taught him to think that way? Now I just have to grow eyes in the back of my head so I don't miss it when he is preparing to launch a wooden block or something.

Just one more thing to report...After getting his diaper changed, Connor's new favorite thing is to throw the diaper away. We can hardly get a dry diaper on him before he's flipped himself over and is crawling off the changing table trying to get to the balled up diaper on the floor. He picks it up with delight, follows us to the pantry trash can, opens the lid and throws the diaper in. The problem for a while though was that he then wanted to reach back in and get it out to do it over and over again. That can get pretty nasty, so we have since trained him to get a milk-bone treat for Avery out of the box and go give it to her, which gives us time to close the pantry door. He is so thrilled to have her eat out of his hand and she is thrilled to get a treat. It seems to work nicely for everyone!