Boys are still different.

So Orren is a nut. We all know this. Part of his craziness is being a climber. I'm trying to break him of it, and really the only form of discipline that works for a kid his age is redirection, and being really consistent. Man, that takes a toll. I remember a few months ago, his thing was opening drawers. We'd redirect him 10-20 times, and then he'd get the idea and stop it. He still doesn't try to open drawers. (Knock on wood.)

Now that his thing is climbing EVERYTHING, he's a little older, and has apparently realized that being redirected just means he can come back, do it again, and mommy will pick him off of it again and again. He thinks it's a game. It's to the point where he's not even allowed on the furniture anymore because every time he gets on any piece of furniture, he climbs to the top of it and dives off. (I will be shocked if we make two years old without a broken bone or stitches, probably both.) It's just as if the world is his monkey bars or something. Everything we own is just something else for Orren to climb. Just the other day, I was getting him a cup of juice, and came back in to find that he'd climbed our pub-height dining room table, and was trying to grab the chandelier. I guess we could take all the chairs away from the table so he couldn't climb it, but where would we even put them that he couldn't just climb them and dive off anyhow? There's really not a lot of the house he's not in, so that's not really an option. Plus, I believe in house-proofing the baby, and less so in baby-proofing the house.

I never had these issues with Erin. She was never a climber, or a particularly physical toddler. Orren, on the other hand, acts like an NFL lineman. He pushes everything and everybody around. He moves furniture where he wants it, to use it to get up onto whatever he's wanting to get onto this time. It's ridiculous how physically adept, not to mention strong, this boy is.

I just feel like I'm spending almost all day (except when he's sleeping) redirecting him and picking him off of stuff. I wonder if we got a climber of some sort for the back yard, if that would help. Then he'd have somewhere to climb, and wouldn't have to get in trouble for climbing the furniture and the counters. Yeah, that will probably be a tough sell for Thak at this point. The last thing we want to do is accumulate more stuff just a year before we move cross country AGAIN, and incur more expenses during a time when we are trying to save as much as possible. We'll see, though. Maybe if I find a used one on Craigslist... although that's not likely here since this city's Craigslist is filled with stuff that belongs in the dump that people are asking tons of money for. Something's got to be done, though. I'm completely wiped out at the end of the day from just picking Orren off of the furniture all day long. On the positive side, though, the workout is good. My arms look fab.