Raeford, actually.

I love this little boy of mine. He's funny, he's smart, and he's trouble.

A couple of stories to illustrate.

Lately, he's taken to putting his mouth over my arms or legs. Whole mouth, with all those shiny, new teeth. This worries me, legitimately so, because he could bite off my limbs--or at least take a nice sized chunk. But, he doesn't bite, and I would just shove his head out of reach of my limb.

Till one day, I got curious and waited to see if he would bite. He didn't. Instead he got a goofy grin on his face and tried blowing raspberries. Who taught him that?

Oh, right, that was me.

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Baby-proofing the house must be an art form, and we're still working on it. Just when I think we're doing good, Raeford learns a new way to get into stuff. Take the peach vinegar, for example.

Mr. Graff made peach vinegar and let it ferment on the porch. I put it up out of reach and let Raeford run in and out of the house because I'm too pregnant to want to go to the park everyday, and Raeford is too little to not want to be outside. I thought it was a nice compromise.

Well, I heard glass shatter on the concrete and knew Mr. Graff's peach vinegar had gone the way of all the earth.

I ran out and picked Raeford up, but he had still managed to cut one of his little fingers on the broken Mason jar. Cuts on little people are upsetting to me, but was he upset about the cut? the blood? Nope. He was mad at Mom for taking him away from the broken glass. He thrashed his feet violently in the air then went limp and threw his arms up to wiggle away.

But Mom was going to win this battle. I hauled him to the bathroom, held him down and put on a CVS band-aid from the cupboard. Then, thinking that he might get one band-aid off, I put on a second for good measure.

For the rest of the afternoon, Rae would come over to me, whimper, and point to his bandaged finger as if asking for the band-aid to be removed. It was sad looking, but I was not persuaded. He did rip them off only to repeat the bleeding-all-over-the-bathroom scene, so I put masking tape over the next two band-aids.

Take that.

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My last story, though, is the favorite. 

Lately, I've been sanding, staining, and sealing book shelves for our study. I take the shelves out to the porch in the morning and Raeford watches me work through the glass sliding doors. 

One day, I'm going to town on my project. I sand two six foot boards and put a coat of stain on each. I'm so engrossed in the project that Raeford stops trying to convince me to come back inside. Instead, he reaches up to the door handle and locks me out. 

I don't notice until I clean up and get ready to come back inside. Then I notice. Rae is barely tall enough to reach the handle, but he has locked me outside. Then I notice that Raeford has climbed into and gotten stuck in his bouncy seat. He has both legs in one leg hole--and can't get out. Oh, and the front door is locked. And the windows are locked. 

I also notice that I have no keys, no shoes, no phone, and am not really dressed to go out, anywhere. How did my 15 month old son lock me out of my house? I start walking towards the office then realize it would be better to ask my neighbor for help. She loans me her phone and offers me a ride to and from the office. Then we watch Raeford through the glass and wait for the porter to unlock my door. 

All I could do was call my mother-in-law and laugh.