Pencils and Cheerios

Anthony really likes to keep me on my toes.  There's just something about this little guy that drives me crazy and makes me laugh all at the same time.

Yesterday he was such a busy little guy that I wound up falling asleep on the couch before 7pm while Bryan and the girls were at soccer practice.  The last thing I remember before Katie woke me up was having Anthony sitting in front of me on the couch while we all watched Mulan.  She frantically woke me up from a nice, but way too short, nap to tell me that Anthony was playing in the toilet.  Ugh!  I don't know what it is about him, but he really likes to dip toilet paper in the toilet and then pull it out to watch the water drip on the floor.  It seriously makes me gag.

Earlier that day he asked for a banana and I gave him some cut up banana.  Minutes later when he asked for another banana I told him "no" and I thought that was the end of it.  Of course, it wasn't.  He found a way to reach the rest of the bunch, and went into the family room where he proceeded to bite through the peels of three bananas.  He actually ate the peels off the backs of the bananas.  If you're wondering who does stuff like that, I can give you an answer.  Anthony.  Anthony does stuff like that.

Today he was very quiet at Mass.  He was happily playing with some of those little golf pencils that our church has out in the pews from a charity campaign that is ongoing.  When he decided to stop scribbling all  over my Magnificat pages, he decided that pencil points where the ideal vehicle for picking up Cheerios.  I guess he feels more sophisticated eating his Cheerios with a pencil instead of his fingers.  I kept trying to pry the pencil from his kung fu grip, but the more I tried the more it seemed like I was going to send him into a full out tantrum.  So in the interest of not causing a major scene during the consecration, I decided to just let him use the pencil as an eating utensil.  Good thing the "lead" is really graphite and not actual lead.

I did think his pencil as utensil showed some creativity.  His very odd antics often reveal that he's a pretty smart kid who likes to find solutions to the problems he encounters.