And this is how it is.

Chase is at this moment moving water from the dog's water bowl to the dog's food bowl, using the dog's food scoop. Luckily, there is no food in the food bowl, but since he has in the past moved food from the food bowl to the water bowl, I know the dog actually prefers dog food soup.

A little over an hour ago, he locked himself in the bedroom. The bedroom to which we have no key. Luckily, he also UNlocked himself in the bedroom, while Mama was frantically trying every key in our odd-key box and calling our-neighbor-the-carpenter.

In between locking himself in the bedroom and creating his own water toys, he had me make a plastic bottle and dried bean shaker..which he opened and ate at least one dried bean and put the rest goodness-knows-where; he tripped over the babygate threshold rushing to say "hi" to Dada (who was on the phone); he amused himself by pushing the stroller in circles in the garage; he got mad at me for folding laundry instead of eating the mushy waffle he was pushing in my face; and he took all the pillows out of the laundry cupboard.

This is life with a toddler.

This is how it is nearly every day. Granted, this day held a bit more drama than most; I don't usually worry about how much of my house I'm going to have to take apart to "save" my son. But the busyness, the swing of emotions? That's there, always.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to stay home with my toddler, to hear him say, "Oh no! Oh no! Mommeee? Momeee? Oh no!" when something doesn't work the way he wants (like just now, when he got his pants wet). He changes so much. Every day. New words, new skills, new behavior...same amazing little boy.

The cuteness never ends

Chase is growing and changing SO MUCH. Every week, he is a different kid. And truly a toddler now that he is (occasionally) walking on his own.

His understanding of the world increases by leaps and bounds, and I'm constantly amazed at what he knows. Last night I had a great example of what he truly understands about the way the world works.

We've been having hot weather, and Chase took a late nap yesterday, so he was up later than usual. Up after dark, in fact, which is saying something since it doesn't get truly dark here until sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 at night. I'd been out knitting last night, and dumped everything - keys included - on the chair when I got home and realized the Boy was still awake.

Chase climbed on the chair just enough to get the keys. The he held up his hand and grunted - his way of letting me know he wanted to go walking. Keys in one hand and my finger in the other, he led the way out the front door and down the driveway. At the bottom of the driveway, he let go of my hand, sank to the ground, pointed the remote at the car and started pushing buttons. When nothing happened, he asked to walk again, and we moved forward about two feet. Again, he sank to the ground and started pushing buttons. Nothing. Forward again, each time a bit closer to Daddy's car.

Ah! This time something happened! He managed to pop open the hatch above the tailgate. He kept pushing the same button, and nothing more happened, of course. So I encouraged him to push one of the other buttons. Eventually, he unlocked all the doors, and popped the hatch several more times (with Mama closing it in between).

Now, I could have been annoyed at this. After all, he was up way past his bedtime, I was tired, it was dark out, we should have been winding down. But instead I simply watched in awe as he showed an understanding far beyond what I thought he possessed - he not only went to the car that matched the keys, he seemed to know that he had to be close to the car in order for the remote to work.

Kids really do pick up on EVERYTHING that you do. Everything. Chase will mimic behaviors I'm not even aware of until I see him copy them. The learning capacity of the toddler brain is truly astounding.