Path of Destruction

I'm following an old friend of mine's lead and dedicating a post to how much havoc one little boy can wreak on your home. I love reading Kara's blog and I check it daily. It's always fun to see what adorable little Jim-Jim is up to and Kara and her husband have me laughing on the regular with their clever posts. Here's her post that inspired me to write this particular blog: Kara and Jim Mann's hurricane. Jim Jim is 10 months old. I warned Kara that I would be posting something similar so that she can see what there is to look forward to once he's 16 months old!

It's amazing what a mess these little ones can make. Jackson has toys and designated items which he is free to scatter about on a daily basis and it's clear every morning that his mission is to make as gigantic a mess as possible. He doesn't take each toy out individually to play with it. No, he dumps the entire contents of the bucket out or walks right up to his book shelf and, one by one, pulls each book off and tosses it to the ground. The harder it is to navigate the room due to scattered toys, the better.

Here is our living room each and every morning. Note that this is how it looks after about 10 minutes of being out of bed... if that.

Even the sofa cushions have suffered from this particular rampage. This is actually a mild mess. If you notice on the bookshelf, there are still books and toys there.

Now on to the kitchen. This is a place where we don't usually allow him to be. It's just too hard to keep him safe. There's only so much baby-proofing we can do with the way our apartment is set up. Our desk area is built-in at the far end of the kitchen and that is a mess waiting to happen that I will not be cleaning up. He also loves the dog water bowl, and of course, the trash. On ocassion, when we are feeling particularly patient, we will allow him to have his way with the "tupperware cabinet" and maybe a drawer or two. Give him 3 minutes in the kitchen and this is what you get:


I keep joking that I'm going to buy a leaf rake to help with the clean-up.