Sneaky Boy!

Lately, Andrew has decided that he is, "not silly, I'm funny" or he wants to "trick" us with whatever. Like, saying prayers - he wants us to start saying the prayer and at some time he'll jump in and start repeating us and, afterwards, say he "tricked us." So, I guess that means he is developing his sense of humor, though he hasn't figured out that an important element of "tricking" is surprise. He generally forewarns us to make sure we play the game correctly.

So, a few days ago, I was playing blocks with them and we were building towers "high to the ceiling." We have a set of 50 letter blocks that stack nicely. Rachael wanted to build then destroy. I divided the blocks up evenly, but Andrew felt he needed more blocks to get his tower higher. He swiped a few of Rachael's blocks without her noticing and his success gave him brilliant ideas. Every time she made a tower of 10 or so blocks she would knock it down. Sometimes, the blocks would roll behind her. Andrew was like a lion on the prowl. He would slowly and quietly inch behind Rachael waiting for her to knock a block behind her. Immediately he would pounce on the block and hide it behind his back. If she happened to look behind her, he would keep the block nonchalantly hidden as he innocently walked back to his tower to add another piece that he just "happened" to find.

I was so torn between laughing at Andrew's "sneaky" behavior and defending Rachael's blocks. I just sat and observed until Rachael was down to only 12 blocks and started noticing that they were disappearing. She finally caught Andrew in the act and started squawking her outrage. Andrew knew he was in the wrong. He tried to be pouty, but Rachael's scandalized protests won out and I told Andrew he had to stop sneaking her blocks. Once he realized that I had been watching him, he got the most classic look of "I've been caught" on his face. It then changed to a mix of "Aren't I clever?" and "Am I in trouble?" I had to choke back my laughter and tell him to just play with the blocks that he had and stop taking Rachael's.