Luke's daycare teacher could hardly wait to tell me what she caught him doing today...my very fun and energetic but always good-natured, easy-going and really sweet baby boy was seen *pushing* another baby down, not once but twice. And then, he apparently walked away and acted like it never happened, leaving his friends crying on the floor!! As if that wasn't enough of a shock, she later saw him *hitting* another baby on top of the head with a toy! Who is this little troublemaker? she wondered, laughing hard. No big surprise there, I told her...he's Abby's little brother.
On the way home this afternoon, I relayed to Abby what Luke's teacher had told me, then asked where she thought he might have learned that. A simple, "From me." At least she's honest.
In Abby's defense, she's not always attempting to inflict bodily harm. One night last month, I asked her what in the world all those blankets and pillows were doing at the top of the stairs. She stood up and got all excited and proud as she stuttered out her idea for keeping Luke safe from falling down the stairs :) The gate went up a couple weeks later.
Abby's preschool schedule (I'm NOT kidding) and Mark's travel schedule were just too jam packed for our traditional visit to Burt's in North Georgia this month, so I bravely hauled these two napless kids to our local United Methodist Church pumpkin patch yesterday afternoon. Once Luke spent about five minutes on the various activities captured above, he got ultra-cranky and seemed to have a one-track mind...to break free and run wildly down the sidewalk toward the precipice of a steep and rocky hillside. Picture me, struggling to hold a 25 lb. sack of potatoes that happens to crying, flailing arms and legs and, oh yeah - arching its back - while helping Abby settle on two slightly sad-looking pumpkins, one tall and thin, the other short and round. No, it wasn't the perfect pumpkin patch experience. But I like 'em anyway! 
