The Battle of the Minds...

A battle of minds is being waged in my household. Myself vs. Ian. We are in a struggle like a game of chess. Ian on the side of getting into things, and Eric on the side of keeping him out. Of course this first started when Ian started walking a while back.

Ian's first move was grabbing my remote controls from the coffee table. At first, my counter move was wasn't particularly difficult or challenging for me as I just moved them to the back of the table. Ians next move was to bite the fireplace. Of course that was pretty irritating to us as it simply is not pleasant to bite bricks, or even watch somebody bite bricks, so this got us pretty good. We had some padding on the bricks, which helped some, but eventually we resorted to putting a blockade of stuff round it to keep him away.

Next was him crawling behind the couch and playing with the electrical wires. I actually think this was in the crawling stage. To check him, I had to build a large wooden badger... er, I mean a custom fence that I mounted to the wall resting up against the back of the couch. Quite effective really. This was a check mate on that activity. His next move wasn't quite as creative as he started reaching for the power cords behind the TV. I promptly built another wall mounted screen to block is way.

Next, the clever little guy learned to put stuff in front of the couch to climb up on it. He was using tools. There wasn't much we could do about this if we want to have a couch in the family room. Checkmate Ian! Fortunately he didn't do this too often.

Next, he decided to grow some more so he could reach my remote on the back of the coffee table. About the same time he started pulling the pillow out that blocked his way behind the couch between teh coffee table and couch. Of course this meant war... We moved his toy box in front of the coffee table. Of course it wasn't long until he started to move the toy box. I managed to pin it in place, so he just leared to crawl in it. From inside the toy box, he could crawl on the coffee table. Meanwhile, he was also moving the plastic storage bin blocking his access to the fireplace. I mounted a hook on the bricks and used a bunge cord around the bin for a while, but once he started the toy box thing, I had to take drastic measures. I got too old wood baby-gates and tied them from the edge of the couch all the way past the fireplace. "This will keep the little booger out for good!", me thoughts. Well, I was right, he has no direct access to the fireplace or coffee table now. However, within a few minutes he figured out he could step on the grids of the gate to climb up on the couch. Easy access to the coffee table. Bummer. So, the next day I countered by mounting a piece of paneling on the gate preventing his little feet access to the grid. Well, within a few hours the little cuss learned to climb on the couch unassisted. Check mate Ian again... Great Scott what do we do now???

Well, I am not a big fan of having to punish a 16 month old, however, the game was over, and the beatings begin... well, not really, but he does periodically get a little tap on the back of the leg. We decided immediately that he is allowed on the couch, however no standing because standing always leads to trying to climb up on the back of the couch. Since we would really rather him not fall into the kitchen, this is unacceptable behavior. He also crawls onto the coffee table, which we would rather not allow. So punishment consists of lots of "no", lots of putting him down, and a few swats. If nearly always responds, but he always does it again after a few minutes. So, he gets to spend a little time in his jail (play-pen), which really isn't so much of a punishment. Katrina's time is being highly monopolized by our little monster of a son. We love him so dearly, and other than this, he is such a good little man. We love to play together, read books, and I get to feed him regularly now. He is definitely one of the few great joys of my life.