The Jr. VP invented a game last night: I follow Daddy around with a stool, and try to stand exactly where Daddy is standing and do whatever it is that Daddy is doing. Push Daddy out of the way if necessary. Bonus points if I can break or steal whatever Daddy is doing at the time. Double bonus if it is also dangerous to one or both of us.

The game was okay when I was standing in the kitchen, looking at my computer. The boy is not yet able to type, after all. It got a little worse when I was standing over the sink chopping vegetables; a certain boy doesn’t really understand which end is the business end of a chef’s knife, and will grab for any part he can get. Standing over the stove cooking dinner? Trouble. And let’s just say it is very fortunate our bathroom door has a lock on it.

I had my mom on the phone at one point last night while the lad was playing his newly born game. She heard me say something to the lad that she initially seriously misinterpreted: Quit throwing your stool! After a pregnant moment of silence from the other side of the conversation, I had a rare moment of insight. Your step-stool! Mom was relieved; I made cheap jokes to Stinkboy for the rest of the evening about the quality, location, the ability to stand on, the need to use two hands to carry, and many many more characteristics about his trusty “stool”. I’m not sure he got all of them. At this rate the boy’s and my mental age should coincide in roughly 48 to 52 months.