My son is an evil genius

I swear my son is an evil genius. And I say that with much love and kindness. But, seriously, for having "developmental delays" he's one smart kid. I'll tell you why he's an evil genius.

I don't allow my son to throw his toys in the house. This may or may not seem reasonable to you. I've wrestled with it myself. What's the harm if he throws a little action figure here or there once in a while? Just ignore it and it will stop being fun. Well, that's not the way my son did it. My son would find the biggest toy he could manage, pick it up over his head in true WWF fashion and toss it as hard as we could with a loud grunt. I used to call him "The Hulk". Did you know that chimpanzees are 4 times stronger than their weight? Well, so is Mateo. The kid actually has deltoids. Truly defined deltoids.

One of his best moves is when we're in the car. I usually give him a sippy cup of juice to keep him....well, let's be honest....quiet. And when he's done drinking, he does this really cool thing. He actually throws the empty sippy cup at me making it through the center console and right into my cup holder. Seriously, I am not making this up. So, in the car, throwing is okay. It saves me the trouble of feeling around under the seats looking for the sippy cup that's been there since Halloween and is now growing fur and making the car smell like there's a dead body in the trunk. And of course we moms find all sorts of good stuff under there; moldy munchkins, stale animal crackers, a colony of mice, etc.

So, back to the no throwing rule. As soon as he lost a few toys after throwing them, he got smart. Instead of throwing a toy, he would very casually, as if it happened purely by accident, drop it on the floor. All the while looking at me with a face that says, "but I didn't throw it." I thought that was quite genius.

One of his other evil genius schemes happens in time-out. For a while we tried the Supernanny time-out technique where you put the child back into time-out everytime they get up with saintly patience and without saying a word (that means no "sit in that seat right now and don't you dare get up!"). So Mateo, after experiencing that technique a few times, decided to get smart and exact his revenge. When we put him on the step stool for time-out, he would stand up knowing one of us would come over to sit him back down on the seat, and as soon as we would get close enough to him, he would start swinging. This happened over and over again. So I did what every responsible, self-controlled parent would do.

"Sit in that seat right now and don't you dare get up!"

Then I gave up. Not on discipline, but on time-out and on Supernanny. What does that idealistic, overly pleasant, British woman know about parenting anyway? I don't even think she has kids.

So you see, my son is an evil genius. There must be more people like him out there in the world, reeking havoc on teachers and bus drivers, pushing the boundaries of gravity, becoming class clowns or rebels without a cause. Well, I've come to terms with it.

But in all seriousness, my son is great! He is funny, animated, very perceptive and sensitive. He is loving and compassionate. He is musically inclined and loves to dance. He gives hugs and kisses to us all the time. He has a strong will and knows what he wants. He is decisive and persistant. All these things will help him achieve his dreams one day.