i think i'm in trouble...

oh how i wish i had stopped to take pictures of what happened earlier today, but i was in a rush to get out the door to make my 55-minute rounds to pick up aedan and then gillian from school.

while i was getting things cleaned up to head out, i let rhys roam around the house. big mistake! we have noticed lately that he is by far the most mischievous one in our bunch: he seems to gravitate toward trouble, and as of late his favorite activity seems to be dunking things into the toilet, including his arm and whatever's in his hand. the problem with this is (a) (the obvious one) he could drown (remember that saying about how it only takes a couple of tablespoons of water to drown? i think fox news made that up to freak out new moms); (b) i don't clean often enough to feel comfortable with him doing this; and (c) sometimes his big brother or sister goes #1 AND

 forgets to flush AND forgets to put the lid down (which is why i have a sign with reminders on the bathroom wall now).

ok, so today i remembered to put the toilet seat down before i set rhys off to roam. so first, i noticed what i thought was a piece of toilet paper sitting in the living room, until i looked down and saw that it was indeed an entire chain of toilet paper, leading like the yellow brick road all the way back to the bathroom. he thought it was hilarious when i started rolling it back up...yes, i'm hilarious--i clean up all your messes. :) 

and i'm not kidding, no less than 2 minutes later, i noticed everything in the house was super quiet. i'm not too worried about him eating things he might choke on (ok, i probably should worry about this more, but come on, it's #3, so i'm WAY more laid back than i've ever been before about these things!). but i just don't like it when i don't know where he is, and like i said, he has the tendency to gravitate toward trouble.

so i started calling him. "rhys. rhys, where are you? rhys, come see mommy. rhys. rhys, where's marley? (hoping i could lure him out with mention of the dog) rhys, please come here. rhys, we need to go get gigi and aedan."

keep in mind that all the time i was saying all these things, i was in fact NOT walking around the house looking for him. i was cleaning up all the toys all over the living room floor...

so when i finally thought enough is enough, i need to find this kid, i went to our bedroom, and something told me to look around the other side of the bed. maybe he's crouched over there trying to eat marley's bed. (don't worry, he can't choke on that.)

then i saw just the tiniest toe peeking out of the closet door, which was wide open. i looked around the closet frame, and there he stood, stock still, waiting for me to find him.

the thing i can't understand is how a 13-month-old can truly grasp the concept of hide-and-seek, but he clearly does. it frightens me to think that if he's this good at it already, and if he is taken in by the temptress of trouble, what i have to look forward to down the road...