How much trouble can one small boy get into in one day?

Quite a bit if you're 2 1/2 and your name is Nathaniel! Only one "incident" got captured by camera, but there were several yesterday. He started the day with what you see here...eating peanut butter in Mommy & Daddy's bed. I'd been making Joshua's lunch and got side tracked with something else. (Having Joshua get the rest of his school stuff together, I think). Anyway, suddenly we realized that Nathaniel was abnormally quiet and nowhere to be found. I walked by our room and saw this...

He'd snagged the peanut butter jar from the table and decided to snack in Mommy's room. My mom laughed - she said that he'd told her he needed more food. Well, I thought he was just dipping in with his fingers...after I took two quick pictures, I grabbed him and the peanut butter from my bed and noticed that no, he wasn't using his fingers - he'd gotten some spoons. Grandma's decorative collector spoons that he loves to play with. He can reach them where they hang in the kitchen thanks to a handy chair.

So then, he tells me he wants a rice cake. I give him a rice cake, finish the lunch and go to get dressed. Next think I know Grandma is telling him to knock it off and pick up his mess. He was standing in front of the heater, breaking pieces of rice cake of and chucking them at his big brother, who was trying to read quietly on the couch while waiting for mom to get ready.

I got a slight break after that, but later found him in the kitchen digging snacks out of a drawer and then pushing a chair over to the counter trying to find his gummie bears from a couple of weeks ago that have been moved to a much more secure place (unless he figures out that if he stands on the counter and opens cupboards he's going to score some candy). Then the kid gates got up and he got mad...too bad bud!

When Grandma came home for lunch, she took the gate down...and we didn't relock the refrigerator...and Nathaniel found a bag with a peeled mandarin orange in it. He sat down at the table with those, squished them all over the table and dumped them on the floor. As I tried to get us out the door to get Joshua, I scooped them up and threw them away. An hour or so later I found that not only did he get juice all over the table, but also all over the floor. He was locked out most of the time we fixed dinner. However, the gate did come down at some point and I found him back in there with a chair pushed over to another counter eating grated cheese that was the topping for dinner that was baking in the oven. Back up went the gate.

Yes, it was a full day for Nathaniel...and Mom too!