Everyone loves to tell you how your life is going to change forever when you have kids. That's very true - nothing is ever the same. Even from day to day, things are constantly changing. Like when your child starts crawling, for instance...
The pack n' play, which was practically collecting dust in the corner ever since our big man outgrew its main function (the changing table attachment!), has suddenly become my best friend! That, and the jumperoo. I can no longer sit and pump, leave the room to go pee, or even turn my head to glance out toward the kitchen without securing him in some sort of containment device!
I have purchased more "babyproofing gear" in the past week than I care to admit. Perhaps I've gone a little overboard, but I'm so tired of the bumps and bruises! It's bad enough that crawling has brought about an uptick in the previously-only-occasional face-planting-in-the-floor business - that is nearly impossible to prevent, if you want to allow your child the space to develop those motor skills and learn his physical capabilities. I've got to try to prevent the bumps and bruises that I can prevent. That said, I refuse to line every edge of my coffee table in foam (though his little noggin somehow manages to find each and every angle and edge throughout the course of a day)!
Homeboy loves him some electrical cords. GAH. This is the cord to a particularly tall and top-heavy floor lamp that he has nearly brought down on his head more than once. Thank God for these nifty cord hiders! He has lost interest now that the cord is no longer in play.
Gotta lock up those poisonous cleaners, ant baits and paint thinner! It seems that crawling has also brought about a sudden epiphany concerning cabinets - that they contain super-fun, baby-unfriendly items that he's just dying to drink, or cut himself with.
Ohhhh the epic Battle of the Buttons. Since the advent of in-home electronics, babies have been obsessed with dials, buttons, touch screens... anything they can get their little paws on to destroy the delicate balance of settings that allow us to continue enjoying our favorite television programming. I found these life-saving "dvd guards" on Amazon - they're attached by velcro for easy parental access (and probably easy toddler access one day, when he figures out that he's stronger than a few strips of velcro!). Of course I'd also like to teach him that these items are off-limits, so that as he gets older he doesn't think that it's fun to play with the buttons on everyone else's electronics, but that kind of limit-setting is really beyond his understanding at this point. We still tell him "no" when he starts in on the electronics, but this keeps him from driving us completely bonkers by actually changing settings while he's at it!
We have yet to order the gate for the top of the stairs, mostly because I'm a bad mother, I suppose. We just don't play in that area, and I'm not crazy enough to take him into that area and then turn my back on him! But accidents are called "accidents" for a reason... you never plan for them to happen. So I do need to get on that. Maybe on pay day. The upward stairs are a whole 'nother beast, and I'm not quite sure how we're going to finagle a gate for that set-up...
Yeah. You tell me. We may have to hire an engineer for that one.
Crawling has also made nap time a nightmare, all over again. Usually it's an issue of him waking too early, not an issue of him fighting the nap in the first place (though a few times a week he does fight me). When he has been asleep for less than an hour and wakes up, I know (from my own extensive experience with this particular child) that he hasn't had enough sleep yet, particularly if this happens with his first nap. He'll be I-just-woke-up jolly for about a half an hour, and things will rapidly deteriorate from there. My choices, then, are to go get him and just deal for the rest of the day, or to encourage him to go back to sleep. Neither is particularly pleasant. My hope is that this sleep disturbance is largely a result of his little mile-a-minute mind just racing with wonder at his new skills and all that he is discovering about his surroundings and himself, and that once he wakes he just can't settle his mind enough to drift off to sleep again. If that's the case, then the problem should correct itself gradually as this crawling thing becomes old hat. Of course, then he'll be onto the next big thing!
Oh, babies. It's always something. Good thing they're so stinkin' cute, and that this milestone-reaching business is such an amazing spectacle to behold. Watching him beam and giggle with pride as he furiously races toward me on his hands and knees just melts my heart!
Knives and poison. That's all babies want.
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