Our little tornado

When we first bought our house, I wasn't sure that I was going to like living in a ranch-style home (since I had only lived in houses with two levels before). But, now that we have Jacob, I am glad that there are no stairs to maneuver and he can crawl around and explore without me having to watch his every move. He doesn't usually wander too far away from me these days, but when he does, I know that he isn't going too far.

He is full of energy and he loves to crawl around the house and get into everything! It's so much fun to watch him try to figure things out or to find joy in the simplest things. I am happy to let him explore pretty much whatever he wants, with a few exceptions of course. If it's something that he could break or that could hurt him, it is off limits (and he has quickly learned what those things are and does a good job of not going near them). But, pretty much everything else he is free to look at, touch or play with.

Some days, he seems to make a mess in every room he enters. Unfortunately, he is a little too young to understand how to "clean up" so Mommy ends up having to do it all (although I have started to sing the "Clean Up" song in the past few days and have tried to get him to help). Most of the time, I just leave the mess until he is in bed for the night so that I don't have to do it ten times a day.

These are some pictures that I took one night last week after I put him to bed. As you can tell, he is like a little tornado wherever he goes!

He loves to open drawers and see what he can find!

(As you can see, I've emptied some drawers that are easily accessible!)

He goes into his room daily and pulls all the books he can reach

off of the book shelf. I am trying to break him of this

habit, but so far, I haven't had much luck!

When he is in the living room, he seems to pull out every toy he can find. The "fun" part is when all of the musical ones start making noise at the same time.

His favorite place to play these days is our "mudroom". He'll play in there for 30 minutes at a time! He loves to play with the shoes on the shoe rack and with the food on the shelves. And now that he is pulling up, I have had to move all of the glass items up to higher shelving.

When he is in the kitchen, this is his favorite cupboard to play in.

It houses our cereal and all of my baking items.

The other day, I watched him figure out how to

"open" the box of Cheerios.

And, enjoy a little snack. What a smart little devil he is!

Even though the clean up can get tedious and annoying sometimes, I love to see the joy he gets when he is playing with all of these different things. I try to remember that the days of him being small and wanting to play "under foot" and with simple things like shoes or boxes of food are going to be gone all too soon. For now, I'll continue to clean up after him and allow him to have fun with whatever his little heart desires!