When you give the boy a pen...

The title may lead you to believe that when you give the boy a pen he makes a huge mess. Maybe when he gets the whole "holding onto and making it work" part down-then yes-it would be a giant mess. At this point in his little life Max just wants to do whatever mommy and daddy do-this results in movies being put on shelves and in the wrong places but with the right intentions. It also results in his wanting a pen of his own after he saw me using one. So I gave him one and a piece of paper and showed him how to make it work. He kinda made a few little dinky marks and then got tired of trying so...

...he walked around the store just poking the movies with it, talking to himself the whole time.

After he had made his rounds he went back to the paper and tried to draw some more...

...didn't work!

This is what Mad Toddler looks like when he doesn't get his way these days! It probably had more to do with the fact that he had chosen to forgo his afternoon nap and was quite touchy. But-he obviously wanted to blame the stupid paper and its lack of cooperation!

Note:the reason he was just wearing a shirt and diaper is that, during our attempt to get him to take a nap we had all gotten quite hot and frustrated-so pants removal on his part was a must-lack of socks was his idea entirely! And no-there were no customers in our store at this time and we do not allow him to run around like this outside of our home ever-this was a temporary state of undress!