Perhaps my memory fails me, but Patrick seems more inclined to cause trouble than Alex did at two years old. Patrick’s the kid you leave playing quietly in the toy room, and you come back and every single game has been emptied out of their boxes with all of the little pieces in a big pile. He’s the kid who figured out early how to drag a stool or a chair around so he can climb high and get forbidden toys.
Yesterday, here’s what happened. As usual, I picked the two boys up from daycare by myself while Molly made dinner. When I picked up Patrick, there was an incident report in his mailbox – these are triplicate forms they give us whenever something bad happens, like a cut, bad bruise, or a biting incident. This one read: Patrick put another child in a headlock. The other child bit Patrick.
(Serves him right!)
There was the usual evening traffic jam of parents and children at the front desk as I ushered the two kids out. Sandy stopped me there and reminded me that I was supposed to sign the incident form and just keep one of the copies. (Molly & I almost always skip this step.) So, I find a pen, find where to sign, figure out what copy to keep and what copy to give to them. When I turn around, Alex exclaims, “Daddy! Patrick went on the elevator by himself!”
“Seriously?” I said. I looked around and couldn’t see Patrick anywhere. At this point, I really didn’t know what to do. Alex was up in the reception area. Patrick was on his way down to the lower entryway by himself. Who knows, perhaps on his way out the front door!
I paused for what seemed like a long time, but was probably just 3-5 seconds, and left Alex with a friend’s mom while I rushed down the stairs. As I was going down, I heard the elevator heading up. Sure enough, by the time I got to the lower entrance to daycare, there was no Patrick, so I bounded back upstairs and found him crying and a little freaked out in the elevator.
Has he learned his lesson? Who knows. Something tells me it’s going to be a rocky year, though…
