Evil Genius.

I think I can say this without prejudice.

Oliver is smart.

It's hard. Very hard for me, anyway. I feel like I am always trying to run 2 steps ahead of him so that I can diffuse his next offensive. And, while you may be thinking, he's a baby! How hard can it be?

Very hard.

As some of you know, we recently purchased a little dining table and chairs. Those chairs will be my downfall. He dragged them down the hall and stood on them to open the pantry door. By the time I found him, he had his head stuck in a Cheerios box.

On several different occasions, he has climbed up onto the chairs then onto the table so that he can take the pictures off the wall.  Yesterday I caught him trying to climb over the gate with the assistance of one of those chairs.

Today he had me halfway convinced I was crazy. I looked over, saw him in his high chair and thought... oops! Forgot about him eating breakfast. Better go get him down.

Then, mysteriously, twenty minutes later he was back in the chair. I thought.. oops! Could've sworn I already got him down.

By the third time I realized he was climbing onto a chair and the climbing over his tray and sitting down in his highchair. Sneaky, sneaky boy.

Even without the chairs he's still a force to be reckon with. He's used his little broom to knock things off of ledges he can't reach. He turns the TV on for himself while I'm not looking. Sometimes I forget that he isn't supposed to be watching, so he gets to watch a whole show before I realize what he's done. He's learned to knock on the wall, making me run to the door like a stupid dog barking at the doorbell on TV.

My baby is outsmarting me, and he's not even one and a half years old.