Last week dh and I were invited by a colleague of dh to have dinner at his place. He is older than us and dh told me that he had been a very successful businessman in the past. Anyway as we could not get a babysitter that night, the colleague suggested that we just bring him along with us. (A bit of background, ds had not been very well the week before and was pretty tired this particular night). We walked in the door of this man's home and I nearly died, the place was perfectly decorated and didn't even look like it was "lived in" - you know, beautiful white lounge suite, crystal and glass everywhere and some VERY expensive-looking china vases and pottery. All I could think about was how I was going to stop ds from touching everything - it was like the proverbial 'bull in a china shop' situation. Anyway we managed to keep him restrained for a while but then we sat down for dinner, and after about 15 minutes in the high chair, he started whining and wanted to get down. The guy had gone to a lot of trouble and I was beginning to feel a bit uptight. Anyway we eventually let him get down and he started zooming around trying to touch everything, and then the inevitable happened - he raced into the kitchen and before we knew it, he'd grabbed a plate from the bench and it smashed on the floor. I just wanted the ground to swallow me up at this point. We apologised profusely and to cut a long story short, we ended up going home early - it was just a nightmare. Then to top it off, a couple of days later we were at the airport and dh and I were taking turns following ds around to make sure he wasn't getting into any mischief. A woman who was sitting nearby watching, said to me (with a bit of disdain) "He never stops, does he?" I felt like saying "Thank you for stating the bleeding obvious!!!!!" Honestly I wonder sometimes if my child is just an average toddler or if this level of activity is normal..? I must admit I feel like throttling him sometimes - any encouragement would be appreciated!! Thank you.