Some kind of trouble

Oliver is learning all sorts of new tricks these days.  Yesterday afternoon he was in the kitchen for a while, and I wasn't sure what he was doing.  When I walked in, I found that he had opened the cabinet door under the sink (the only one in the kitchen without a child lock) and emptied out everything in there.  And he was so proud of himself.

Oliver has become really good at a lot of those kinds of thing.  That evening, the dryer buzzed and he immediately walked over to the laundry closet and banged on the door to open it up.  I put the laundry basket on the floor, and he moved the dry clothes into the basket without any help.  (We did have to stop him from putting the wet clothes from the washer in there and redirect them to the dryer.)

Tonight I got back out his Christmas present -- a mallet and pegboard that was put away a while ago when he got a little...zealous, shall we say, with the mallet.  He can hammer each peg down using the mallet.  As a woman at the park pointed out today, he really is very coordinated (ah, the irony that my child would be at eighteen months very coordinated but not yet talking!).

And his personality is coming out more and more -- ALL sides of it.  Sunday he got his very first time out at home, followed by his very first time out at daycare on Monday (the note home said the he "had a hard time listening").  He has a tendency to sometimes smack at my face and doesn't respond to my admonitions to stop.  I put his hand down to his side very firmly and tell him "No" in my most authoritative voice, but he just laughs.  If I'm playing with him, I'll stop.  If he's up on the couch with me, I'll put him down.  But he persisted (mixing it up by kicking the dog to provoke her to growl at him -- hilarious, let me tell you).  So after attempting and failing to put him in time out in a chair, I hauled him upstairs and put him in his crib for 2 minutes by himself.  He didn't get upset while he was there, but he clearly understood when I came back that he should feel back about something.  He was contrite (as much as a toddler can be) and sat happily in my lap for at least 20 minutes.  He went back up again later that day, very upset that he was separated from us, and was sobbing when I went back for him.  Once again, he was very solemn and sat with me awhile.  I know it's just the next part of him growing up, and in some ways it's really interesting to watch, but it's also reality setting in that he's truly not a baby anymore.