Wild Man

Who needs clothes when you're going to run away? Sneakers and a pull-up will suffice.

That container behind him was completely full of spaghetti two minutes before this picture was taken.

I promise I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I've just been busy giving Liam a new little sister. (I'll post about her next, or you can just read all about her right here.  She is practically perfect in every way.)  Now that Mindy is safely here and we're getting settled into our new summer routine, I have a little time to update on stinky Liam and his crazy Wild Man antics.

Liam has been out of school for two weeks and I am grateful to say that summer school starts Monday.  Holy cow! This kid needs his routine and structure. I'm pretty sure that the combination of no school and a new baby in the house is enough to make him crazy.

We've had to put locks on everything we can think of because he's everywhere and into everything.  If a door gets left open, he runs out it but not before releasing his trusty side kick seen with him in the picture on the deck.  The dog runs in one direction, and then Liam runs in the other direction. Without fail, the big kids go chasing the dog and leave Liam to run free.  I yell to them to get him instead of the dog, and they yell back "She won't come back if we don't catch her!"  I tell them Liam won't come back, either. They're response? "We don't want him to come back!"  They do love their little brother, but I suppose they wouldn't mind a little break from his constant busy-ness.

This past weekend, Byron and Aiden were out in the backyard doing work and I was upstairs cleaning Liam's room. Apparently they left the garage door open, so Liam got out. We were looking everywhere and yelling for him when we heard a neighbor from way down at the other end of the street yelling, "Hey! Is this your kid?" as he walked up with Liam wearing only a pull-up. Yep. That was our kid.  It seems the guy left his front door unlocked, so Liam strolled on in and went to play in his son's bedroom. The guy let go of Liam's hand when he saw us, so the little booger darted into ANOTHER unlocked house.  This house was owned by a police officer who happens to have a very large dog. When the thing sits, it's as tall as Aiden!!! Liam ran in and stood behind this huge dog waving at us.  The door was opened, so we yelled and yelled for the owner to come downstairs.  It felt like it took a century to finally get his wife to hear us and come down. Well, she didn't hear us. She heard her bathtub turn on and realized there was a little guy standing in her bathroom staring at her as she slept in her bed. Thankfully, she found the humor in the situation.

Then on Tuesday, I found that Liam had climbed up onto his 3 inch window sill and was balancing on it. If he'd lost his balance, he'd have gone through the glass and fallen three stories onto concrete. Yeah. Not so good even for the invincible Liam.  This kid is going to be the death of me...if not himself.

So tomorrow we have a friend coming over to help turn the house into Alcatraz. Locks and alarms will be everywhere. We're screwing baby gates in front of every upstairs bedroom window so he can't fall out. He is practically Houdini, so I figure lots of these efforts are going to only be temporary fixes, but I'll take what I can get.

Like I said, Monday is the first day of summer school and boy am I grateful...and tired.