All About Nathan

Nathan definitely has a stubborn streak in him (I have NO IDEA WHERE HE GETS THAT. Cough, cough). After all, any baby who HOLDS IN HIS POOP is pretty damn stubborn. Nathan gets it in his head what he wants to do and nothing, I mean nothing, will change his mind.

He’s decided that he’s going to figure out some way to touch all the things I say he can’t touch, which includes the entertainment center. When he crawls up to it, I always say Don’t touch that, Nathan. At first, he would touch it anyway, resulting in him being moved to another place in the living room. So then he got to where when I would say Don’t touch, he would plop down on his bottom and stare sadly at the off-limits item for a few minutes before he would forget and try to touch it again.

But now, my little guy is trying to outwit me.

Now, he KNOWS what is off limits. So now, instead of directly touching something he knows he’s not supposed to, he’ll get his index finger as close to it as he can WITHOUT ACTUALLY TOUCHING IT. For instance, he knows everything on the entertainment center is off limits, but he tries to test me by putting his finger A HAIR AWAY from the off-limits object, like the DVD player or the DVR. He won’t actually touch it, but it will be MILLIMETERS from actual contact.

FREAKING MILLIMETERS, GUYS. So close that at first glace, it looks like he’s actually touching it.

Yes, he still gets reprimanded for it. I tell him if he can’t actually touch an object, he can’t FAKE TOUCH IT, EITHER.

So then, once he figured out that he can’t FAKE TOUCH what’s off limits, he started touching them WITH OTHER OBJECTS. I’m sure he’s thinking, well, I’M not touching it… my (toy, stuffed animal, etc) is touching it. So he’ll take one of his toys and will use it to touch the items that he’s not allowed to touch. Like his toys are becoming his FINGER PROXIES.

AND HE WILL LOOK RIGHT AT ME WHILE HE’S DOING IT.

As if to say, Look mom! I’m not touching! I can’t get in trouble if I’m not physically touching it!

Yeah,  Nathan. You can’t do that either, my mischievous little guy. You cannot make your toys into proxies on your behalf, son.

He’s definitely in the Boundary Testing Phase. He knows, KNOWS, that he’s not allowed to touch certain things, and yet he tries to find loopholes in the rules, looking for other ways he can touch said object. Or trying to see just how close I will let him get to touching it.

I have my hands full with this little guy.