I Cannot Win

Jacob is a button-pusher. I mean this literally as well as figuratively. He is constantly getting into things he shouldn't and making them do things they shouldn't.

While we were camping with my parents over Labor Day weekend, Jake managed to push the buttons in their RV in JUST the right way to over-ride the ENTIRE electrical system. It took 3 grown men a full day to figure out WHAT he did and to fix it.

A while back, I left him watching cartoons while I took a fast shower. Now, for me, a shower is no longer than 5 minutes...this includes shaving of the legs AND a full hair treatment. I take VERY quick showers. In that amount of time, he'd managed to lose our TV remote (which is quite important, we can't turn the blasted thing off without the remote) and play with my phone, calling my youngest brother. I got out of the shower just in time to hear that he'd transferred the call to the upstairs phone and hear it ring ONCE. I looked on my caller-ID and thought that he'd called back the last person who had called me. So I called my mom, only to find out he hadn't called her, and she hadn't called us. When I hung up with my mom, my younger brother called asking if I had called him. I told him apologetically that it was Jake, and I was sorry he'd bothered him at work.

Last week, two days before the time change, my alarm clock (which is FANTASTIC, it's an automatic clock, I don't have to mess with the time ever....as long as it's set correctly) changed time. Steve was getting ready for work when we noticed it was an hour slow. How did that happen?? Someone, most likely Jake, messed with the DAY setting on the thing. He set it two days fast.

Knowing all of the things Jake could do, I've taken a few precautions: Our TV has a plastic cover over the buttons, so he can't randomly change channels, turn up the volume unexpectedly, or turn the TV off while we're watching something. I put all remotes and phones up high, where he can't reach. We have a lock on our computer, and turn it on ANY time we're not on it. And I've pushed EVERYTHING back on my kitchen and bathroom counters. I've even taken off the latch on the dishwasher, so he can't make it run.

Again, remembering my little button pusher, I went to take a shower today. I took the phone and remotes and put them up high, and hid the upstairs remote before going into the bathroom. Jacob, my sneaky little boy, came upstairs and played with Steve's clock-radio. He turned the alarm on, the radio on and then pushed his book off of his night stand. When I was getting my hair dry, he found Steve's fancy lotion, like the expensive kind, and SLATHERED everything in sight, the alarm clock, the night stand, the sheet and comforter, his hands and his shirt. Then he came into the bathroom and proudly said, "Mom, I washed my hands!"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Jake is a button pusher, and no matter WHAT precautions I take, no matter HOW safe I THINK I am, he finds something else to get into and more buttons to push....mainly MINE!