If I had to sum up my youngest child in a pithy phrase, it would be this: he’s a holy terror, but at least he’s an adorable holy terror.
Adorable: blissfully innocent of gender stereotypes, he wears Julianna’s pink hat, Nicholas’s Mater ballcap, Michael’s monster-eyes stocking cap, or…Julianna’s pipe-cleaner-and-butterfly fairy crown.
Holy terror: We are quickly running out of safe places to store things, i.e., places Michael can’t reach. He can get the iPad off the top of the file cabinet, the candy dish out of the far corner of the kitchen counter or the hutch. He knows how to get into every drawer and cabinet in the house, and there’s only so much room on top of the refrigerator. Thus, things are constantly disappearing.
Adorable: last Sunday–not a choir day! No more sound system stories!–I glanced over at him during the penitential rite and saw him walking slowly up and down the pew with a hymnal in front of him, held above his head like the Book of Gospels.
Holy Terror: He will.not. leave the DVDs alone. He’s always pulling them out and handing them to me. When I actually put on something he gives me, however, he watches for two minutes and then goes to get another one to hand to me.
This leads to many problems, as you might imagine. Problems such as smudged Thomas discs and scratched Jazzercise videos. In fact, he broke one in half. And the Wii fit disc stopped reading last week.
Put those last two “holy terror” moments together, and that explains why the basket full of Wii games and controllers is being stored like this right now:
Adorable: while we were watching a family movie one night, Alex was jumping around, slapping his fingers on his palms as he does when it gets exciting. Next thing I knew, I saw Michael, his eyes fixed on Alex, jumping up and down and waving his fingers.
Holy terror: as I sat at Alex’s piano lesson typing this on Tuesday afternoon, one of the piano teacher’s children decided to play with Michael. Shortly they headed upstairs. I debated following, but decided he was with someone who was paying attention specifically to him. So I stayed put. Shortly another one of the kids came running down the stairs. “Excuse me,” he said politely, “but your baby is playing with scissors.”
When I got upstairs to intervene, Michael was no longer holding the scissors, but his playmate said, “He was trying to cut his hair.”
Holy terror or adorable? You decide.
He used to grab Julianna’s underwear out of the (clean) laundry pile and wear them on his head. Yesterday I got out of the shower and discovered him wearing my (not clean) exercise bra like a very, very long necklace.
Now it’s your turn. Best toddler stories: Go!
Kathleen M. Basi 
I vote adorable.