Acting Up and Acting Out!

The last few months have brought a lot of change to Ledger's life.  First the baby, then selling our house, turning 3 years old, summer time (and the complete loss of a schedule), and now a move.  It hasn't been easy on him, but he's handled everything like a trooper.  For the most part.  But over the last few weeks, we are starting to see some of the acting out behaviors that we would expect from a 3 year old.

First, I found him hidden in the corner of our house scribbling on the walls, wood blinds, window sills, and (of course) his legs with a Sharpie marker that we were using to label moving boxes.  The crisis was averted when Magic Erasers came to the rescue and cleaned up any evidence of the treachery.

Can you see it there on his leg?

...And on the wall, and box, and blinds?

A few days later, he used an ink pen to "decorate" our living room lamp shades.  Chris tried to use this as an excuse to get new lamps, but, again, Magic Eraser saved the day and foiled his plans.  I love those magic little sponges! :)

Shortly after Ledger's artistic experiments, he tried the mother-of-all paintings.  On his face!  Chris put him down for nap time and thought he had fallen asleep, but after about half an hour he knocked on his bedroom door.  Daddy found this...

Ledger had covered himself with Desitin, the diaper rash cream and Vaseline.  He had this thick, oily mess in his hair, clothes, bed, window, door... everywhere, really.  Chris threw him in the bath tub and washed his hair about 3 times but could not get this stuff to budge.  I came home from work to nurse Locke and found a frustrated Daddy and Ledger with white hair.  I put him in the sink and washed his hair with Dawn dish soap which helps break up the oil and made his hair a lot better.  It was still very sticky, but at least it wasn't white.  Actually, his hair was "styled" sticking straight up for the next two days until we went swimming and the chlorine stripped the last of the oil out of his hair!

Before..........After

So I guess we have officially arrived at the terrible threes.  Let's hope that Mommy and Daddy can try to maintain some patience as we carefully navigate these new, defiant, waters!