Gabey Proofing

To elaborate on my last post, it turns out that our house is one big baby death trap.

I thought Matt and I were doing a pretty good job making things safe for our little crawler. We put those little plastic plugs in all of the electrical outlets. We're installing locks on all of the bathroom drawers and cupboard doors. We put up baby gates in the kitchen doorways. We put a brightly colored foam playmat down over part of our lovely Mexican ceramic tile floor. We even replaced the pointy-cornered coffee table of death with a nice leather ottoman-type thing.

And still, the baby keeps finding extremely dangerous and disgusting things to play with. For example, he discovered a large hairball gacked up by one of the cats right in the middle of the floor under our dining room table, where I couldn't see it but he could. (Luckily I got to that before he did - his general excitement at crawling under the normally boring table tipped me off that something was going on down there). Similarly, he found a choking-hazardous raisin beneath the couch, probably left behind by my lovely niece Parker. He also discovered that it's really fun to pull on the living room curtains as hard as possible to see if he can pull them down. (The good news is that he cannot, even when he throws his entire eighteen-pound body weight into the attempt.) He has also tried crawling into the cat litter boxes (we stopped him), knocking over a porcelain vase (he couldn't quite reach it), and chewing on an electrical cord (it never even got near his mouth, so don't worry).

Fig. 1: Baby Attempts to Pull Down Living Room Curtains

Whew. I knew crawling would change the game, but I simply didn't realize what I would be dealing with. He's a tiny tornado of dangerous activity. A tiny but extremely cheerful tornado.

The good news is that - also like a tornado - he isn't stealthy at all. You know how people make their pet cats wear collars with little bells on them? We considered it, but we don't really need to put a bell on Gabe, he's so noisy when he moves across the floor. He looks and sounds very much like an iguana, slapping his hands really hard onto the ground, which sort of gives the game away.

He also sticks out his tongue like an iguana, now that I think about it:

Fig. 2: Iguana Tongue

So the bad news is that he has no respect for danger or his own body and it's become very, very exhausting to chase after him as he whimsically attempts to inflict great bodily injury on himself despite my spending all that money on baby proofing items (i.e. the aforementioned locks for cupboards that Gabe has never shown any actual interest in trying to open). The good news is that he's slow enough and klutzy enough that we have no problems anticipating his next moves and cutting him off at the pass.

If his crawling becomes more proficient or ninja-style though, we are in serious trouble. Perhaps we will simply empty the house of furniture, leaving only the leather ottoman thing and the foam floor padding. And his 18,327 toys, of course - we'll keep the toys. Because if we remove all the danger and hairballs and breakable vases, he's going to need something to play with.

Oooh, I can't wait until he starts walking!

Born to Crawl

He went from not being able to crawl, to 100% being able to crawl, to 100% being able to crawl really fast, all in about a week. I'm sure this is standard operating procedure for many babies, but I still find it impressive. I also think Gabe's chubby legs are impressive. Also, I'm impressed that pretty much everything in the house has turned out to be some sort of baby death trap. I must finish baby proofing!!!

All Grown Up

My sweet little baby revealed his first tooth this morning.

Then, while I was blow drying my hair and getting ready for work, he crawled so very fast across the bedroom floor - away from the super fun and not at all annoying electronic toys with lights and music! - to sit between my feet in the bathroom.

And later, at daycare today, he crawled up the stairs of the little climbing structure, and applauded for himself when he reached the top.

He's full of tricks these days, my little baby. Oh, and growing so big and strong, so quickly. My heart. My heart.

I am an awesome mom and never miss obvious solutions to annoying problems.

Gabe sleeps beautifully in his crib at night. We put him down to sleep between 7:00 and 7:30 every evening, and he usually just hugs his lovey lion, rolls over, and goes to sleep. Fussing is rare.

Naps, however, are a different story.

I can count on one hand the number of times we've managed to get him to nap in his crib. Usually we lay him down, hand him the lovey lion, and kiss him...and he looks at us as though we've crushed his little spirit. After about thirty seconds when he realizes that we are serious and we really do expect him to stay in his crib because we are the meanest parents of all time, he starts screaming and then rolls over and pokes his hands through the crib bars in a desperate attempt to escape. It's pathetic and awful and after five minutes of listening to him cry I inevitably give up and go pick him up.

He'll nap in his stroller, Ergo sling, and car seat no problem, but he hates the crib. (Silver lining: taking Gabe for two one-hour walks a day in his stroller or sling went a long way towards helping me lose the baby weight. Hooray!)

Anyhow, I am sick (yet again, I know), and lack the energy for a good long walk, so I decided I would make an effort to get Gabe to nap in the crib this morning.

And much to my shock and surprise, he babbled quietly to his lovey lion for about five minutes, then rolled over and went to sleep. NO CRYING!!! It's practically a miracle!! That's right, after eight months of struggling we achieved a successful crib nap!

What did I do differently, you ask? What marvelous parenting technique did I employ?

I closed the blinds in his room so it would be dark in there.

I am such an idiot.

Sundays at the Park with Babies

Let me set the scene. We are at the park: me, Matt, and Gabe, with my sister-in-law Mandy, her husband Dan, and their darling daughter Parker. It is a fine, sunny afternoon, with the temperature in the low 70s (yes East Coast and Midwest people, please feel free to be jealous). Gabe has just awoken from a little nap, and is smiling sleepily up at us. Parker, who crawls fast as lightning, has been cheerfully making the rounds of the park, exploring the grass, feeling the sand, picking up random rocks and leaves and exclaiming, "Ooooooh!" The grown-ups are chatting casually, enjoying the lovely weather and the not-too-crowded park and the happy babies.

As we talk Parker starts to wander off, and as Mandy rises to follow her, Dan says, "No worries, I'll keep an eye on her," and walks after her. Mandy smiles and nods gratefully, and we resume our discussion of something trivial, handbags maybe.

Five minutes later, Dan is racing across the grassy field towards us, carrying Parker in his arms. She has a smug smile on her gorgeous little face, lips clamped tightly together. "She has something in her mouth," says Dan, panting slightly and looking panicked.

"Aaah! What is it?" asks Mandy, trying to get her fingers into Parker's mouth. Parker turns her head sharply away, still smiling. "Parker, what is in your mouth?" She twists her little body away from her mommy, unwilling to give up the goods. Finally after about thirty seconds of wrestling, with Dan holding her arms down and Mandy sticking fingers into her mouth, Parker spits out...three peanut shells.

Gross. Gross.

That's right, she had found some old peanut shells on the ground, remnants of someone's earlier snack, and had managed to get them in her mouth before her daddy could stop her. And as her parents forcibly remove the peanut shells from her mouth, all her cheerful cuteness ends. Parker gives her parents a dirty look (if a one-year-old is capable of a dirty look), then opens her rosebud mouth and HOWLS.

Gabe, who had been monitoring the situation with sleepy smiles and yawning, now looks at Parker with wide eyes, and then decides he had better open up his rosebud mouth and howl too. HOWL HOWL HOWL. This only serves to further incite Parker, and soon the two of them are trying to outdo each other in howling and hysteria and freaking out.

I think it was a draw.

This is where I confess to being a bad parent. I should have picked up Gabe to comfort him and walked him away from the situation immediately. I did finally manage to do this, but not for a few moments. I had to wait until after I stopped laughing so hard my eyes teared.

Moving On Up

Well friends, it's 2009, and in honor of the new year I decided it was time to do a little cleaning around the house today. One of my chores for this afternoon involved tidying Gabe's dresser drawers, which I never mind doing. It's fun to go through his little outfits and pajamas and hats and socks. Today as I began to straighten out the piles of onesies, I realized that many of the items I was folding really didn't fit him anymore, and my tidying the drawers morphed into cleaning out the drawers and banishing all of the too-small clothes to a storage bin.

This kind of broke my heart.

I've done it twice before - gone through stacks and stacks of little clothes, sifting those items that still snap easily from those that have grown too short or too tight, exposing little calves and chubby forearms - and both times it has been surprisingly tough. You see, we have been incredibly blessed in that we haven't bought many clothes for Gabe at all; most have been given to us as gifts, either at my baby shower or following his birth. So every time I placed a tiny t-shirt or pair of miniature jeans into the storage pile, I remembered who gave it to me. I remembered opening up a baby shower gift wrapped in pale blue paper and holding up the contents: a little onesie with a guitar on the front. A pair of baby overalls. A cowboy t-shirt and matching socks almost too small to be real. I remember the smiles on the faces of the gift-givers. And I remember myself, so excited, so full of hope and joy at the prospect of meeting the little person growing inside of me. What an amazing time in my life.

I can clearly remember receiving a darling outfit emblazoned with turtles and fish on the front and thinking, "This is so big. The baby will never be able to wear it." And now that outfit (sob!) is in the storage pile. It's too tight across his chubby tummy now, and too short for his long, long legs. Oh, my baby. My Gabe. I am so happy that he is growing big and strong, and learning new tricks almost constantly! But I am so sad that his baby days are racing by at this rapid pace. I am so sad to pack his newborn clothes away. I wanted one more wear out of those fish and turtles. One more day of his being tiny and new.

As I packed I tried to console myself by thinking that perhaps we will be lucky enough to have another baby in a year or so. If we are very, very lucky, perhaps it will be another healthy little boy. Someone who can wear the guitar onesie, the overalls, the cowboy outfit, the fish and turtles. This made me smile, but it didn't really console me, because no matter how amazing and wonderful a new baby would be (if we are indeed blessed enough to have one, boy or girl!), that new baby will not be Gabe. He is unique, and just fantastic, and my very favorite little guy. And he will never be a newborn again. He'll be a big boy soon. He'll be walking, then going off to elementary school, then wanting to drive my car, and dating, and acting like a typical sullen teenager. Sigh.

I know, I know, this is all a little melodramatic and Queen Of Stating The Obvious - the baby is getting bigger! Shock! Alert the media! So I will stop my mooning and end with another observation:

That baby has a way better wardrobe than I will ever have. Better by a mile. No fair.



Above are a picture of Gabe on his birthday, and a video taken this afternoon.