Sometimes when I complain about E’s antics, I get advised to watch him better. I can’t help but laugh, manically. Clearly they don’t know my son. E is the master of the long con. I was folding clothes in his room once and I found multiple screwdrivers that had gone missing hidden throughout his room. Well, you might say, don’t leave screwdrivers out. Yeah, I know. I don’t. You know those times when you are doing something, like putting batteries in a toy or tightening something around the house , and you put down the tool for a moment to do another part of the project? Then you go to pick it back up and it’s gone and you think, now where did I put that? Well in my house, things I credit to faulty memory are actually E storing up supplies for his long cons. The screwdrivers were an attempt to take his door off the hinges. He will steal a marker when I am looking down while drawing and hide that only to take it out months later the minute I look down or go to the bathroom and color all over the walls. People think I am exaggerating. But then they experience it for themselves and are blown away. He is most intelligent and always thinking at least 7 steps ahead.

My sister and brother in law lived with us for a year. My sister kept wondering where certain frozen items were going. She thought maybe her husband ate them or she thought she had purchased more than she really had. After they moved out I was trying to close the fridge and it wouldn’t quite seal. I kept pushing and then realized there was a plethora of frozen boxes hidden behind the drawer. E had been stockpiling the food he liked.

Another thing that is difficult is that he is inconsistent. You think he has grown out of a behavior because its been 2 years since he last flooded the bathroom, so you are not keeping an eye on him anymore when he goes to the bathroom. But then you see water leaking out from underneath the door and realize he turned on the faucets and locked the doors.

Last night I sent E up to his room to put a new shirt on. He came down fairly quickly but he had something orange all over his hands. I realized it was orange acrylic paint. I went upstairs and it was all over the walls and all over the carpets. A has paint in her room, but she usually keeps it locked. He’s like a raptor and waits for the weak spot and pounces. He waits for the one time that she forgets and grabs it and hides it.

I cleaned up what I could so it would not spread anymore, but I will have to repaint and get new carpeting upstairs. After I was done I leaned against the wall to relax for a second and I saw there was also a hole in the wall. He also managed to bore a hole in the wall in that time period with a teeny tiny screwdriver that we use to unlock doors. I thought that screwdriver was also locked up. Wrong. The hole was a good inch. If I were not so frustrated, I could almost be proud of how fast he accomplished all of that. If you think maybe I lost track of time and he was up there longer than I realized, I didn’t. I checked the movement on the camera from the living room from the time he went up the stairs to the time he went down. Four minutes. I have been tempted to get a go pro camera for him and just put it around his neck so I can just watch him live as he does things, and be alerted then I don’t have to follow him around the house. I have cameras in almost every room, but it’s hard to toggle back and forth every time that he leaves a room.

I hope that someday E is able to use his powers for good. Maybe work for home security or the CIA and impart his insane stealth and sleight of hand skills on others. At that point, I will feel okay. Like all of this was not in vain. In the meantime, I will be here practicing my patience.