It's hard to punish while laughing

Oliver is like a brand new car. For the first two years it's totally maintenance free. You simply fuel it and spend the rest of the time enjoying how fun, easy, smooth, novel, and beautiful it is. It's there for you when you want to spend time with it, and does its own thing when you're busy with something else. Then one day it starts making capricious noises and not responding to your handling like it used to. You realize you have to get serious about oil changes and the like.

It was sometime between the time when Rebecca seriously scolded him for messing with the fax forbidden machine for the 800th time to which he responding by running toward me laughing and yelling "I BERRY NAUGHTY!" and the first of many times he responded to an executive order by saying "No, I have to go sleep," followed by immediate fake snoring, that I realized our warranty period was up.

Here are some other favorites.

I hear him yelling in his room "I'm duck (stuck), I'M DUCK!. No don't do dat. Don't do dat foot!" I go in to see what the problem is and find him sitting on his bum, pulling back against the blinds cord that has wrapped around his foot. His struggling backward had pulled the blinds all the way up and he was at the end of his rope.

He will request something and repeat it over and over in escalating decibles until the request is favorably met. Neverthetheless he apparently still felt his reasonable demands weren't being considered with due gravity and haste because he started adding "RIGHT NOW!" onto the end of said demands, even the first version.

In the same vein, the other morning after I got him up and crawled into bed to warm myself by the 400 degree pregnant lady furnace, he ran into the room, refused to come duddle and demanded. "I want o-meo (oatmeal)" I want o-meo, Daddy." I tried to coax him into a few minutes of pre-breakfast duddling, but he got louder and added the "RIGHT NOW!" So Reba got up to take care of him, but he had already made clear who he wanted to be served by so he yells (while pointing a stiff finger). "NO MOMMMY! NO MOMMY! GO SLEEP!"

He's still a very responsible lad though. Most nights and many nap times come with him saying "I wan go sleep." before the servants even suggest it. When this time comes he dashes around the house picking up 6 or 7 cars and trucks and Sammy Shark to sleep with. He must have inherited one of his parent's literal-mindedness and respect of limits, while lacking his other parent's McGuyver orientation, because sometimes, when in his open toddler bed, he'll yell about some car. We go in there and the trouble car is on the floor 2 feet away, but he doesn't think to get it himself.

He also tells us the second he has a stinky diaper. He finds the nearest Diaperchanger and says "I need da diaper change." He also often adds the perfunctory "WOOF, P.U., you dinky!" he learned from his mother. Anyway, tonight I heard him grunting, then he runs up to me and tells me he needs a diaper change. I tell him to tell his mommy. I see him go tell Reba (who's on the phone). She tells him to go tell his daddy. He takes a few running steps toward me again before realizing he's being suckered and stops and screams (in that loud, crying scream that ushers in all ingenuous toddler meltdowns) "I NEED DA DIAPER CHANGE!" and flops down on the floor before his laughing but guilty dad rushes to stop the tidal wave before it gains momentum.

So obviously he's been spending a lot more time in the penalty box (the bathroom) lately. It used to really upset him, but now he spends his time trying to open the door handle and yelling "I wan open dis DOO-ER!"