Things The Engineer Has Taken Apart

We had the Engineer from birth to 5 months. He lived with his grandparents for 2 years and came back to us in April at their request. His adoption was finalized July 9. He is a very bright boy, inquisitive, very talkative, and desperately wants to please. He's a leader...no ifs, ands or buts about it...he will be in charge of SOMETHING!

The first few nights we had the Engineer, he asked for toys in his bedroom. Ok! Sounds great! Except that he would take the toys apart. He took off the safety knob from the door and ran all through the house. He got in teh closet and made chaos out of organized boxes of baby clothes I keep in inventory for "whosoever will come." He also emptied the drawers of his dresser. No problem.

I turned the dresser around with knobs facing the closet door to keep him out of the drawers and the closet. We installed a baby cam to make sure he stayed away from the window. We put a chain on the outside of his bedroom door so he could call for me but he couldn't get out and run down the street to hotwire someones car.

Every morning, he would wake up at the crack of dawn and start yanking on teh door til he almost pulled the chain completely out. So hubby installed a slide bolt. It took him 3 months, but he broke the casing on the door and we had to install another one just this week. LOL That is for HIS safety, you understand, so he doesn't hurt himself.

See, there is no toddler-proof lock he can't get past. Those dang magnet locks on the medicine cabinet and under every sink in the house? Pawpaw & I can't open them to save our lives, but The Engineer can open them lickety split. He can open every window and exterior door. Therefore, if we don't lock his room at night, he has full access to basically everything in the house and every house in the neighborhood. =0)

So I started putting some thought into toys for him to play with in his room if he wakes up super early. I spent a solid HOUR in June looking for a little preschooler laptop with all the noise and lights to entertain him, something that would keep him hypnotized adn out of trouble (wrong of me, I know). The hour was spent standing in Target trying to figure out WHICH laptop would be least likely to be taken apart. Gave it to him on his birthday. The next morning, he had taken at all the batteries and had his hand stuck the laptop because he tried to get to the circuitry.

No more laptop in the bedroom. Except a few weeks later he promised he wouldn't do it again. But he did. About 20 minutes after bedtime that night, I hear him calling my name via the baby cam. Pitch dark, and he has his hand stuck AGAIN inside the laptop trying to play with the circuitry. No more laptop in the room for REAL and it is ductaped back together.

So the next few months, he takes the finials off the wall, takes apart books, takes the tops off the metal posts of his bed and stuffs all of this AND some legos and his socks down in the posts. Every few days, I have to go into his room with a broom and use the stick to push out all of the objects from the metal posts down to the floor as I left the bed up. Fine.

He gets a flashlight for his birthday that is Handy Manny. It is screwed shut, inset screw where he can't get to it with his thumbnail (because he has taken switchplates off the walls with his thumbnail as a screwdriver). This is the ONE object he has not taken apart, other than the big toddler legos. WOOHOO!

Except we lose the flashlight. So I get him an LED push button flashlight at Target that seems Engineer-proof. He can't leave it on so he can't run down the batteries, and he can make shadows on the walls as he tries to fall asleep. Except the next morning, I go in his room and the flashlight is in pieces...3 tiny batteries extracted and pieces laying all over his bed. Byebye flashlight.

When his grandparents came for a visit in August, they brought the kids lots of stuff. One of the items was The Engineer's Harmonica. He can play it quite well! I asked Pawpaw if he thought there was ANY WAY The Engineer could take the harmonica apart. He spent a good 10 minutes looking at it and decided there was NO WAY the harmonica could be taken apart by any man.

Guess what he took apart? The Harmonica. It took me a while to find all the parts in the bedposts as his sister left a bag of wipes in the room oen day and he stuffed every wipe in every post of the bed frame. LOL It keeps us entertained.

You should have seen Pawpaw's jaw drop. We still can't figure out how he did it. It was like welded shut.

So i tell him there is nothing else I can give him to play with and I am really sorry, but it is for his safety. Ok, he understands. Except one day I forget and leave the dresser away from the door of the closet. I come in the next morning and he has taken off one of the drawer knobs. Ok, I half expected that, even though I had personally used an electric screwdriver to tighten those knobs on there so tight that none of us could get them off.

What I didn't expect, is that he would put the knob back on the screw so tight that not even Dad or Pawpaw can get it out. He hands it to me non-chalantly as I open his door in the morning..."This is for you, mom." As if to say, "I conquered the dresser knobs. What's next?"

Naturally, he is not a boy that I can take my eyes off for a second. I am pretty sure that he is a hacker and has sent everyone in my contacts various computer viri. =0)

I have a bag in my purse with my prescription medications. I have a tiny lock on it with a key I hide somewhere else. The other morning I went to the bathroom to get a brush as he sat on my floor. When I came back, he was in my purse trying to get the padlock unlocked with his thumbnail.

He can open any jar, no matter how tight, in .037 seconds.

His thumbnails are magic and can open anything, even though I trim his nails AT LEAST twice a week.

Yesterday I caught him with his little red tricycle...just seconds before he got the back wheels off, and I was outside with him the whole time. HOW?????

I think we are going to have him put brake pads and new rotors on Michael's car.

Did I mention that he just turned 3?

The first day of Mother's Morning Out, I reminded them that he can take any object apart and to be very careful. When I was walking away, I see him taking the faceplate off the wall. I remind his teachers AGAIN. When I come to pick him up, he hands me the teacher's pen...in 4 pieces. She had no idea he had it.

That's my boy!

I told her to please watch him because he will rewire the entire building and launch Nuclear weapons to Iraq. She laughs. I'm not laughing.

I think for christmas I am seriously going to get him a chemistry set and just see what happens. You think?