Ten minutes from home on the freeway. That’s when Jakey fell asleep. On our way back from the train show this afternoon.

When I got him into his bedroom, I tried for a stealthy diaper change and crib transplant.

No dice.

At first, he was happy to see the inside of his crib—stuffed G-raffe and Bunny there to greet him. But, that warm note soured fast when he realized I was easing the door shut behind me as I slipped out.

I gave him a couple minutes to plead and yell while I changed clothes and went downstairs to turn on the video baby monitor. He was silent by the time I got sweats on and crept back past his door. Another sleepy fit short lived.

Or so I thought.

Downstairs, I peered into the baby monitor’s small night vision image. Slatted crib bars as usual, heaped blankets and a stuffed animal.

No sign of a sleeping baby.

Sun streamed in our living room window so the screen was hard to see. I squinted and held the monitor close.

Movement in the center of the crib. Nondescript and fluffy. Could he be under a pile of blankets?

Then I saw his tiny heels at the far end of the crib, just at the edge of the frame, raised above flexed feet.

The fluffy spot at the center of the crib hit home. The lack of visual focus on the screen was supplanted by absolute clarity in my mind.

I made it up the stairs and to his door in about four seconds. When I came in, Jakey looked back at me over his shoulder and kept working. The Costco-size box of Kleenex on the nightstand was nearly empty by the look of the heap of tissues reaching nearly halfway to the crib rails. He just kept pulling and dropping, my diligent, determined boy engaged in doing something interesting. Always doing, doing.

He’s not even two and the list of his actions I am half annoyed at and half joyous over grows daily.

I removed the Kleenex pile and the box to the glider chair. I asked him not to do that anymore. He said, “Downstairs, thank you Daddy,” and we came downstairs together. Nap was over before it started.

I find it amazing a small being like him can so cleanly and regularly summon the best and worst of my emotions in the same instant. Heather and I try—we really do—not to laugh at his most inappropriate behavior, even when it’s hilarious.

We mostly succeed.

Friday morning Jakey and I spent some time kickin’ it in the play room. We had been reading together before he stood up and walked around the corner to the living room. I was sorting through a stack of children’s books when my brain pieced together the clicks and clunks I was hearing from just out of my sight line.

As with the Kleenex incident today, realization doesn’t soak in gradually, it smacks me upside the head with a 2×4. It’s like the Big Bang. Nothing one instant and then, well, everything.

My record player.

Except, in my mind, the voice sounds more like RECORD PLAYER!!

I rocketed off the futon and turned the corner to see my boy kneeling in front of the record player, its lid lifted, watching the platter turn with a small Lego car—one I had made for him—scooting along at the back, half on, half off. The blue and red car repeatedly catches on a hinge momentarily and then jolts forward like a tourist driving on the roundabout beneath the Arc de Triomphe. Erratic and unpredictable.

This delighted him.

Anger washed over me and was just as quickly swept under by a close-following wave of admiration. The sight delighted me, too. The Lego car sort of rolling along on its own, Jakey kneeling there, still as a bug, with so much activity right in front of him.

I can’t help adoring the fact that his mischief disguises itself as tiny physics experiments. My toddler is ever the miniature scientist and some of his best mischief is often nearly silent.