A boy thing?

There are times I think James might be trying to tell me something. For instance, when he tries to push the buttons on the DVD player or pull the books off the bookshelf and I say “James, No” in the most calm and assertive way possible (and yes those are words used by “The Dog Whisperer”) James looks at me with a grin, shakes his head back and forth and stretches his hand out toward me. It wasn’t until yesterday that I took that gesture to mean “stay where you are mom.” You see, typically, I’ll say no once and if he doesn’t leave whatever it is alone I’ll get up and move him away from it. He started saying no (shaking his head back and forth a long time ago) and for a while I don’t think he knew what it meant, but when I say no to him I shake my head, so now he shakes his back at me. He does it during meal time with certain foods, when I drain the water out of his bath, and when I get up to move him away from whatever no-no he’s into. Granted I think it’s funny, but I stifle my laugh and wait until the deed is done before I tell him how stinkin’ cute he is.

Here’s something else and maybe it’s a boy thing, but I don’t know. James dislikes order. I’m almost sure of it. He does not like his toys to be put away in the basket. He does not like his books to be on the shelf, or his clothes to be in the dresser, or the blankets to be in the drawer under his bed. If there is something he can take out of something else, he’ll find it and simply remove it. He doesn’t necessarily want to play with it, or do anything spectacular with it, he just wants it out of place. He also likes to open the kitchen cabinets- all of them that he can reach. Then he just looks at them. He walks from one end to other and just opens up the cabinet doors. Luckily there aren’t that many but still, it’s amusing. On an ordinary day, I will clean up behind him 3 or 4 times. I’ve considered just leaving it, but it gives him something to do and he isn’t really hurting anything. I just don’t get it. Now, if I could just get him to learn to enjoy putting things back as much as he enjoys taking them out I may be on to something. I think I’ll work on that!

On a different note- James is walking! He still prefers to crawl on occasion because it's faster, but he can do it when he wants to. I'll attempt to post a little video... and by little I mean my battery died so I only got 5 seconds.