antics of our two-year-old

I wanted to document a few of Shepherd's antics lately. He seems kind of like a real person lately, someone I can kind of talk to, but nevertheless someone who is really bad at carrying on a conversation.

• A lot of times he'll do naughty things and my response will be, "Why did you ______, Shep?" He usually looks at me earnestly and seems to proffer a pretty substantial explanation, with his funny hand gestures and facial expressions, but I have no idea what he's saying.

• The other day, we went on a walk in the neighborhood. Shep has developed an attachment to the children in one particular neighborhood family, it seems. Recently, he saw one of them walking up the aisle at church and followed her to sit with their family for a solid portion of the meeting. On this particular walk we were on, we went past their house on the other side of the street. Shep was riding his trike, which we push because he doesn't pedal yet (we got this one for him not too long ago, and he loves it), and suddenly he wanted to stop and get off. I accommodated and he proceeded to run across the street and up a little bit until he got to the right house. Then he knocked on the door. The kids whom he loves were home, luckily, and welcomed him to play with them. The whole thing was just so funny. I had no idea he knew exactly where they live!

• The other day I was working on an editing project in bed after waking up. Shep was hanging out in the bed with me watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. (He's watched so much of that show lately, which I have used as a crutch in order to meet this editing deadline.) He decided he wanted to get up and play, but I stayed in bed editing and didn't follow him. Then a little while later, I heard a faint "mommy" through the window. Realizing he was outside unattended and imagining him running into the street into oncoming traffic (not an unreasonable fear--this kid likes to run into the street a lot), I bolted to get some clothes on and go after him. When I reached the door, he was trying to open it from the other side. Apparently it's time to childproof the door so he can't escape!