No. Please. Don’t.

In addition to throwing things away, another of Cliff’s favorite pastimes is to hit Lillian.

Not just with his hands, but with objects. Anything he has a hot grip on.

She squeals. Screams actually. Carries on. He hits more. We pull him away, take away his weapon du jour. Hold him, move him to another room, you name it. He cries. Occasionally. But goes back for more. At least he did. For a while.

But now he doesn’t. He’s actually learned not to hit. (Until he unlearns it and the cycle begins again. And, I have faith, it will.)

I know I’m not alone in this belief, but some boys (maybe that’s sexist, but it hasn’t reared its head with my girls) are born with a harassment trait. I can see by the subtle expressions on my dear baby boy’s face that he enjoys the mayhem he creates when he tears through the house antagonizing Lillian and destroying all things in his path. He grabs toys and throws them in the trash. He reaches for everything and anything that may be on a table, or out of reach, just to watch it fall and (hopefully) crash. And we needn’t even talk about the obsession of chucking things in the toilet.

There is never an adequate lock for those corner circular cabinets, and at the quickest opportunity, that boy is in there pulling out cereal boxes and bags, dumping the contents on the floor and spreading it out with arms and legs. I stop him and quickly try to control the mess. As I attempt to sweep around him, he’s full-body grabbing at the pile as I try to push what I can into the dust pan. There he lie–on his cereal mountain–celebrating.

I remember around Christmas being with someone at a party discussing how we hadn’t really had to remove knick-knacks off of tables when our kids were babies. We just taught our children not to touch certain things. And they obliged. We couldn’t understand the need to clear the decks. Weren’t we just amazing mommies?

Well, um, excuse me. Can I take it all back? I get it now. And then some.

Here, I have a 16-month old brown-eyed wonder boy who began walking during his 10th month, says nothing (but maybe an occasional utterance of mama and dada) but busily wreaks havoc on anything movable or not, human, animal or inanimate. But he’s an angel. A sweet loving little curious darling. And I know we’ll instruct him how to behave. And he’ll learn, eventually, as he already has. (Remember? He stopped hitting … for now.)

In the mean time, I’m ready with the broom, the plunger, the disinfectant, the ice packs (for Lillian’s bruised head and ego) and the love.