Not another one!?!

Trent is about two weeks shy of his first birthday, and I've been noticing some disturbing behavior. He becomes absolutely filled with toddler giddiness when he can find a way to do something he knows is naughty.

For instance, here I am typing, and Trent is reaching up to the keyboard and smashing his palm on as many keys as he can manage, all the while looking at me with a toothy grin and giggling so furiously that he can't stand still and has to bounce up and down to rid his body of the excessive levels of dopamine that his mischievous behavior is providing him.

Trent is also the reason that I've had to initiate more severe consequences for the older kids' failure to comply with everyday responsibilities. Already we've had two shattered dishes that people neglected to clear from the table. Trent is now tall enough to reach them and fling them across the room. I'm having traumatic flashbacks to these days:



All of this from the child who has been a near angel from the moment he was born. He used to be perfectly content to sit on the floor amongst all his toys, touching none of them, and just watch people and smile when they spoke to him. Now he derives all his pleasure from wreaking havoc and trying to bite me through my jeans. Perhaps all that time spent observing people should have been done somewhere where he couldn't watch Drew.