Example Essay

My youngest son Ryan is eleven months old and somehow he managed to hit the terrible twos early in life. It’s easy to tell when he is up to no good because he gets this look in his eye. It is the look of total destruction, even his grandmother sees it, she calls it the look of the devil. As he crawls along the floor, looking back and forth you can almost hear that old Metallica song ‘Seek and Destroy’ playing in his mind. His destruction cannot be limited to only three categories but three of the most prominent are his desire to empty every drawer within his reach, no matter what the contents. His constant determination to destroy everything housed in our entertainment center, mainly the X-box. And his undying will to ‘help’ empty or fill the dishwasher, or at least cover the clean dishes with whatever greasy substance may be on his fingers.

It starts off early in the morning, just after his breakfast. A clean diaper and a full tummy is more than enough to keep him going for a least a few hours. He waits until neither my wife nor I are looking and then makes a mad dash to the Tupperware drawer, his favorite hangout. We automatically know what he’s up to by the signature sound of lids hitting the floor. As if we didn’t know what he was doing we both turn to each other and ask, “What is Ryan doing?” At that point one or both of us go to the kitchen only to find him standing at the drawer back to. The various lids come flying over his shoulders like rapid fire from a machine gun. A sudden “HEY” gets his attention rather quickly and he jumps from being startled. As he turns around a huge shit eating grin sprawls across his face followed by an expression that reads “Oh, was I doing something naughty?” He then plops down on his butt and does ‘The big hand crawl’ toward us. The ‘Big hand’ term was given because as he crawls along with every forward movement he raises his hands over his head and slaps them off the floor. It reminds me of a charging bull grinding its hoof into the ground right before the charge. He comes charging across the floor with that same grin smeared across his face until he reaches my legs and pulls himself up. When he is stable enough and sure of his footing he stairs up with an evil smile and another expression that reads,” I know I’m not supposed to be doing that but, I love you”. At that point I walk over and put the Tupperware back in the drawer. After all it is my fault; I’m the one who still hasn’t replaced the worn out child locks that he so easily snaps open.

One of his other frequent stops on the path to total destruction is our old and tired entertainment center. At his level are four main points of interest, the cabinet on the left, the matching one on the right, the satellite box, and his personal favorite the X-box. All are very intriguing to him, the cabinets are capable of killing an hour worth of time just by grabbing and pulling until there is nothing left to come out. The satellite box has a large number of buttons to push and a door for a credit card that he opens several times in a day. But the main area of focus is our old X-box, it’s not a new X-box 360, if it were I don’t think it would be within his reach. Often times when my wife and I think he is just playing in the living room we hear an odd noise. I can only describe it as a diver bouncing on a diving board before making a big splash. It’s actually Ryan after he has opened the CD drive on the X-box and is making a game out of making a disk bounce in the open CD tray. He figured out how to open the disk tray a few months ago but has only recently discovered that if he pulls down on the open tray it makes the disk bounce out of the tray. We have reminded our older boy time and time again that if he leaves a game in the X-box and does not turn the console sideways Ryan will have it broken by the time he gets home from school that day. It will only be a matter of time before he figures out how to rotate it back and get at the CD tray.

Sometime back in early September I installed a dishwasher for my wife as an anniversary present. Ryan however thinks it was a present for him. If he is on the floor and sees the dishwasher opened he crawls as fast as possible over to it and stands up bracing himself on the open door. From there he firmly grasps the bottom rack with both hands and starts shaking it back and forth making the dishes rattle and bang off one another. This is great fun for him and within the first few shakes has developed that famous ear to ear grin. Opening and closing the soap dispenser also proves to be a great time. The spring loaded door always gives him a slight jump every time it pops open even though he knows what is coming. Loading up the dirty dishes isn’t too bad, every once in a while he has to be pulled away and slid across the kitchen floor. That buys enough time to straighten out the dishes and put the bottom rack back on its track, he is so quick though that this needs to be done at least three times in one loading. If the dishes are clean it can be a different story and the ten foot walk from the dishwasher to the cabinet seems more like a mile. Pull all the plates out and stack them on the counter, move Ryan away, close the door. Go back to the counter, grab the clean plates and put them in the cabinet. Back to the dishwasher and open the door, Ryan comes running. Remove all the clean bowls and coffee cups, slide Ryan across the kitchen floor again and close the door. This process goes on until the load has been emptied and with any luck there are no baby finger prints smeared on the clean dishes.

With all the mischief he gets into there is still one looming thought in the back of my mind. He isn’t even walking yet, although he is capable of it. He paws his way around on two feet clinging to furniture and any other stable object he can get a grip on. He will also balance without assistance for a minute or more. These are telltale signs that he will be running in no time, at that point nothing will be safe. Looking toward the future, one year from now he will be almost two and will have a little brother that is his age right now. When I think about that I realize I need to get moving on replacing those worn out child locks.