Babysitter of the (New) Year

I'm at my mom's house, babysitting my nephews.  The two year old is what they used to call Skeletor, a "lord of destruction."  Last week, he got into my sister's mascara, and wrote all over the wall and himself with it.  Over the weekend, he got a Sharpie from Bossk knows where and used it to write on the banister, himself, and the couch (I got into a screaming match with my sister over that, since his thirteen year old babysitter was in the room with him at the time).  And now it's my turn. 

Already, he has tipped over his formula can (which he's too old for anyway), dumped out every one of my mom's nightstand drawers, stolen (and consumed) the bag of cookies I keep in case of emergency, tipped over his apple juice onto the floor, unrolled a tin foil container all about the house, and put several Super Hero Squad figures and his mother's iPod in his mouth.

But all that can be shrugged off.  I'm blogging now (instead of watching him) because the boys (now five and two) wanted to eat an apple.  I sliced half of it up for them, then put the knife up on the counter where they couldn't get it.  "If you want more, let me know and I'll slice more pieces for you," I said, unnecessarily adding, "DON'T try to cut it yourself."

I was on the computer, writing up my NMX blog, when the two year old came running toward me, a knife in his hand.  He couldn't reach the small blade I'd used to cut the apple, so he'd taken a desk chair, pushed it into the kitchen, climbed onto it, opened drawers until he found another knife.

It was like one of my scariest fever dreams: a small child running at me, brandishing a knife half the size of his whole body.  Instead of fearing for my own life, though, I immediately thought of what might have happened had he held it by the blade, or worse, tripped and fell while bringing it to me to cut more apple.

And me, being the worst uncle in the world, I told him to hold still while I took a picture.

These kids are doomed.