Force of nature

Orion is a force of nature. He runs our household...literally! I am not talking about dancing around your average, run-of-the-mill terrible two's tantrum fit. This kid is involved and in charge of everything that goes on in our house. He sees and hears everything and puts himself in the middle of it and barks orders at everyone. In his mind he is helping to cook, vacuum, mop, doing dishes, choosing what we watch on t.v.    Anything that you do, he wants to be involved in and then run things his way. As if this is bad enough, we can't put anything away while he is watching, or he will get it out. It doesn't matter how high we put it either; he will just move furniture around and climb his way up to where he wants to go.
As concerned parents, Melanie and I are constantly on the look out for sharp objects and knifes that are left out, closing doors, latching cupboards, and picking up anything fragile. Since the teenagers in our household have the memory span just shy of that of a goldfish, it is a real task and real concern. Never have I seen, at least in my limited time around children, a kid that gets into that much stuff on a constant basis. Orion goes non-stop from the time he wakes up until his mid day nap, then again from the time he wakes from his nap until about 11:00 pm or so. We try to get him in bed by 8:00pm and have to have all the lights off. He will play in the dark, sing, talk, yell out, try to climb off the bed repeatedly, cry, laugh, slap, pinch, thrash, toss and turn, and head butt, for hours before finally deciding to go to sleep. Then he is awake before 7:00 am and starts the process all over again...it is absolutely tiring.

As I try to write at night after the kids are asleep, I have hardly had a chance of late to do any writing. I am usually asleep before Orion goes down, or I am not that far behind him if he goes first.
  To counter his mayhem, Orion can be the sweetest, most cuddly, fun, and full of laughter kid you can hope for. His smile disarms even the most hostile reaction. His laughter is genuine and everything he does is absolutely adorable.
  Orion is quite the chatterbox now. He knows so many words and small phrases. Many things that he says are still not super clear, but we understand what he is saying most of the time. He also uses hand gestures to get his point across, i.e. patting his hand to his chest while saying "mine".
As yiayia and papa spent a couple weeks with us in March, Orion had the chance to really turn on the charm. Papa has been pretty sick this past year and as a result he is always cold. Orion, always found blankets for papa and would bring them to him and lay them across his lap and say "nigh-nigh". He would also get papa's cane for him whenever he got up and needed to walk. Orion would chase him around the house with the cane yelling "Papa! Papa!"