After a few weeks of trying to crate, baby-gate, and otherwise contain the beast, my Partner in Crime and I were just trying anything we could think of to keep our house intact. We thought the bathroom would be a sufficient means of, well, containment. He couldn’t knock down or open the door. He couldn’t break it apart. And if he had potty accidents, the tile would be a lot easier to clean than the area rugs or the 100 year old hardwoods. (I mean, in Mac’s defense, a tree is a tree, right? No matter its form, it’s all meant for Mac to pee on.)

Man alive, y’all, I am in so much trouble when I have kids for all of the “brilliant ideas.” I have. I think I am such a thinker. I’m just in trouble, that’s for sure.

Per usual, he did great for the first day or two. He seemed to be pleased that Carly wasn’t roaming free while he suffered inside. And hey! No accidents!

Day three brought us this:

A gentle reminder: he has no teeth.

And y’all, he is one smart cookie. He licks the wood until it’s soft, then scratches it all up.

Our solution? Kick plates!

These little beaut’s come in 3-packs. So we turned one vertically to cover El Caballo’s little work of art. He was not a fan.

So he moved over to the right side of the door and made another little demonstration of his love. So we put up another kick plate.

He thought perhaps it was the right side we disliked. Let’s try the left side again! Another hole? Another kick plate!

Uh oh. We’re out of kick plates.

Well, by now it’s been 3 months. Three months. Of crossing my fingers every day. Of cleaning my bathroom every day. Of dreading going home every day. Because, you see, it’s not just the hole in the door. He was still having potty accidents. Almost every day. Sometimes he would step in it. Sometimes he’d smear it on his sister. So we’re talking about bathing them weekly, sometimes twice weekly. And for a week or two, my P.I.C. was out of town, so I was handling this mess on my own.

I’ll tell you what: I’d rather change every diaper of every child at work for an entire week than ever have to bathe Mac at 10:00 at night ever again.

In the meantime, his manic episodes had broken the gasket seal between our toilet and the floor, so we had a tiny little leak in the basement. Like Home Depot needed one more reason to label us "Customers of the Month."

Now we are not quitters. We’ve been watching The Dog Whisperer for months. We’ve bought several books. We’ve considered bringing in an exorcist. Because when we adopt, this boy and I, we say “Forever and ever, Amen.”

Right around the time we saw episode 5 in season 6 of The Dog Whisperer, in which a dog nearly injures herself by ripping the molding off the walls when her owners left, we came home to find Mac… out.

And that’s when we knew it just. Had. To. Stop.