Our house has recently become littered with a growing number of make-shift barricades, perpetually closed doors and “hey!-look-over-here-instead” decoys, all implemented to distract Porter from the various and sundry ways in which he chooses to cause mayhem. Aside from the laundry room and bathroom, he has also become enamoured with the gigantic potted plant in the dining room, and all of the fun that can be had by frolicking in it’s loamy goodness. The only way I can truly relay to you his child’s sheer will and single-minded focus is to explain it as his superpower. If given the opportunity, I am sure he could bend iron with it.

Our increasingly regular showdowns are like something straight from the movies: Porter will be casually crawling along, and he’ll spy his target. Sensing the imminent danger, I will glance his direction. He and I will make direct eye contact for about 3 seconds. From there, a mad dash ensues wherein he will scurry towards his intended mark, while I hurdle toys, blankets and pools of drool. Invariably, I get there first – crushing his joy, yet again. In the old days when I’d close a door ahead of him, or relocate him to another room he’d just look at me and blink. Nowadays, however, I get a loud and official accounting of how I am the worst mother e-v-e-r.

Baby-proofing issues aside, Porter’s single-minded focus brings a whole new level of challenge to about every other task undertaken. Changing his diaper has become a full-on aerobic activity. His ability to twist and contort rivals something out of a Cirque du Soleil show. I’m never sure where exactly it is he thinks he is going, but he is damn sure going to die trying to get there. It is a fairly common practice these days for all the piles of extra diapers to end up on the floor next to the changing table, and for me to end up with my hands on my knees, panting. Put simply, it’s messy, dangerous and exhausting. I guess you could say that the literal act of changing diapers has become a metaphor for my life.

And, although I have written pages upon pages about his need to run us through the sleep gauntlet, I actually have some good news to report. Well, sort of. Upon returning from our holiday travels, Porter started officially sharing a bedroom with Stella. And when I say officially, I mean sleeping in the same room. Stella still hasn’t fully wrapped her brain around this concept, in that she still refers to it as “Porter sleeping in my room.” Whatever.

I moved the crib into her room months ago, but never got up the nerve to let him sleep in there for fear of exacerbating the sleep side-show we already had going. Although I was quick to complain that it couldn’t get much worse, I know that deep down I feared it could. And so, in there it sat, dormant, acting as nothing more than a giant stuffed animal corral. That is, until the day I walked into my bedroom to get Porter after a nap and found him standing up in his bassinet. Hmm. I’m just guessing here, but I bet if I went back and read the Co-Sleeper literature, I’m fairly sure there would have been some sentences specifically dedicated to advising against this type of activity. Probably in red. And all caps.

And so it was, that in trying to circumvent being brought up on child endangerment charges, the two of them began to sleep in the same room, gulp, at the same time. We had to dig out and dust off the monitors, of which we haven’t used even once since Porter’s birth (you know, the same ones we had glued to our side the entire of Stella’s infancy). Then we waited. Waited for the earth to fall off it’s axis and go spinning off into the universe. But, guess what? It didn’t. We didn’t all combust, or implode, or any of the other heinous things that my imagination had convinced me were sure to happen under such circumstances. Instead it just became a regular old night of sleeping and waking, but through some miracle of nature, Stella manages to sleep through it. And, it completely escapes me how, considering she is less than 10 feet from him. As I see it, there is only one logical reason: it’s her superpower.

So, Porter continues to wake at random and unscheduled intervals, but we actually have our room back. And you know what that means. Yes, we no longer have to quietly forage around in the dark for our pajamas and wonder if we have put them on backwards and inside out. Aww yeah.