Mr. Mischief

AJ has been making me think back to these cute book characters from childhood. Well, specifically

this one.

Here's some of the naughtiness he's been up to:

1. Whenever no one is looking and I forget to bolt the front door, he runs out, goes two or three houses down the street, and knocks on the door. I don't know those people, and they are never home. Twice now, other neighbors of ours who know AJ have seen him before I did, and went over there to keep an eye on him and try and talk him into going home. Thank goodness we have some great, watchful neighbors who know him.

2. Not long ago I made the mistake of letting AJ throw a bunch of dirty clothes down the laundry chute, "what kinds of things can I find that will fit down the laundry chute" has become his latest fun game. Toilet paper rolls, flashlights, combs, DVD cases, books, and his iPad have all taken trips down the chute. Sometimes he just shoves clothes down there in such jumbled heaps that they get stuck in the middle. We have fashioned a long pole for poking down there and clearing the chute. One evening we got a wooden pole stuck in there and it couldn't make the slight bend to come out the bottom. It had to go back up, somehow, and come out the way it went in. We let a rope down the chute, tied the end of the rope to the board, and then went back up to the top floor to pull the rope and get the board out. While we were busy doing that in the basement, he stripped all the beds upstairs, Which leads me to #3.

Every. single. day.

3. Awhile back the boys started this cute game where they both climb under the fitted sheet on their beds and hang out there. When I'd go in and ask "what are you doing?" AJ would holler "we're making a fort!" It was sweet, they'd bring the iPads and some blankets and pillows under there with them. But somehow, this game has progressed into just yanking all the blankets, sheets, and pillows off all the beds, right down to the mattress pad, of every bed in the house, every day. Aliza tries to keep them from getting to her bed, but sometimes she's not fast enough, or she's at a friend's house. So every night we have to make all the beds up. If you do it too early and AJ's not tired yet, he'll just strip them again, so you've got to time it carefully. It's just AJ, Zack doesn't partake in this tomfoolery. Zack was happy to play "we're making a fort!" but he's not interested in ripping sheets off all the beds just for the sport of it.

Those are the only repetitive, naughty things he's been doing. There are other, random acts of naughtiness. Today at my parents house he let himself into the garage and into the driver's seat of grandma's car. He put the seatbelt on and reached up to pull on the gearshift. He didn't have the keys, but he clearly had a plan to go somewhere.

Otherwise he's just a typical little boy, splashing everyone else in the pool, and leaving his games out all over the house.