Well, this is turning into quite the week! Colin has decided to do a lot more walking in the past 24 hours. He was only taking off if he was walking toward Jer or myself. These little walks were taking place on my watch, when I wanted them to. Last night Colin decided to change the rules by taking off on his own. Running. On the tile kitchen floor. DEAR LORD. The baby is fearless. He is wobbly and drunken on his feet, yet he just takes off running and screeching. It is literally the scariest thing you have ever seen. If I thought I was watching him like a hawk before, I was WRONG. This is insanity. He has already fallen several times and that is with me running with him!! I just can't catch him fast enough. We have a couple of little baby gates, but I am now on the hunt for a great big one to completely block off the kitchen. He is seriously going to do major damage if he falls on that floor. I must say that if I could go back in history and change one thing, it would be to get some nice new carpet instead of the wood floors that we put in early in my pregnancy. Don't get me wrong...I simply ADORE my floors. I begged and begged for them until I was blue in the face. But now my entire house seems like a booby trap! We left carpet in 3 bedrooms, but Colin certainly won't stay in those rooms! I am wondering what the time frame is to get from this kind of walking to the kind where they don't fall down and break their heads open. Anyone??
I am so proud of Colin for all this major progress in the past few weeks. It is like someone opened the flood gates and now everything is changing faster than I can keep up. We had kind of a lull...between 6 and 10 months, things were kind of peaceful with Colin. He learned to sit up on his own and make fun noises. We spent those months playing nicely together with his toys and watching his little cartoons. Dinners out were fairly easy since his major meals were bottles and he could just sit and play with a toy. I could do dishes and clean house while Colin sat in my field of vision playing in one little spot on his own. If I wanted to blog or check email, I could just sit him down here in the office and he would play happily with whatever book or game I handed him. Then he hit 10 months and the last month or so has been a new world. He is all over the place, crawling, pulling up, cruising, and now just taking off walking. He can't even be in the office anymore because he climbs under the desk and starts taking apart the computer wires!! He is also a champ at trying to "fax" things and attempting to turn on the shredder! He is suddenly so much like a little boy and I love it...and miss my tiny baby, too. This whole year has been about a "new baby" and little baby hands and toes and breast feeding and bottles and onesies and infant carriers and rocking chairs and Boppy pillows and rattles and tiny little things in general. All of a sudden I am looking back on that instead of being in the middle of it. I feel like I stepped into a new room, full of new things, and I am learning all over again how to get my footing. I have a feeling that I have a lot of new rooms in my future. I loved the first room so much more than I ever could have imagined.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
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3 comments:
If you need a big (and ugly- albeit, sturdy) gate, the Supergate does the trick. Our house is designed in a way that there was no place smaller than 5 feet that we could gate off, and this was the only gate big enough that was a reasonable price.
As far as the falling...Gabby STILL fumbles all the time. She is great at walking (been doing it for 7 months now), even running, but she still trips over rugs, table legs, her shoes, the floor in general, and she also gets WAY crazy in the evenings...she gets super hyper and silly, races all over the house, and ends up running into a wall because she isn't paying attention. We have many a black eye, bruised cheek, or busted lip over here. Good news is they recover fast!
I have had the exact same thoughts as you, as far as this being like a whole different world of baby. I think back to Gabby's indispensible baby things (like her swing or swaddle blanket) and we used them CONSTANTLY, at the time. Now I think back and realize we haven't used that stuff in over a year. It is like we have traveled miles since then. But I, unlike you, was not much of a fan of the "baby" stage. Mommyhood was not natural to me. So to me it is exciting to reflect on how far we have come. Dave and I like to think back to the baby-days for fun, but we sure don't miss them!
I'm in an opinionated-ass mood, so here are my 2 cents.
Screw the gates. :)
We have a gate blocking the stairs for obvious reasons, but that about it. I learned that I simply could not contain them and part of learning is exploring. So I child-proofed as much as possible (and that's a learning process to) and then set them free.
I shut all of the doors downstairs (especially the bathroom! Hello trash can and toilet water!), I covered all of the outlets, I moved all house plants into our bedroom, we installed locks on the kitchen cabinets, and then we just crossed our fingers. So far, so good. The exception being the kitchen trash can which I refuse to put on top of the countertops. I draw the line there. So that's what they get into the most amount of trouble for (as you heard on the phone).
For me the key is listening. When they are quiet, they are ALWAYS up to no good. I'm proud of my 'mommy ear.' :)
Before you cry about your beautiful wood floors and dream of carpet, come visit me! Seriously, the crap these twins have done to my carpet is horrible! Stains galore -- mostly from knocked over bottles and sippy cups.
As for falls, we have been lucky. We have ceramic tile in a good portion of our downstairs, and so far we haven't had any head trama. They magically seem to fall straight on their butts -- kinda like a cat always landing on it's feet. **Knock on wood**
So child-proof, be prepared to kiss some boo-boos, holding your breath, and set him free. :)
http://kateandcarson.wordpress.com/
Oh Girlfriend- you have no clue. Unfortunately children take after their partent. Therefore Hunter is completely fearless. We have absolutely no carpet in our house. So tile floor here we come. Then she goes outside to a peagravel deck around a pool. She's learned. Some of it was the hard way(including falling out of the bed onto the tile floor), but what do you do. I gave up on the gates because she just stood there and screamed wanting around them. Just tell Jeremy to go to home Depot. They have a great child-proofing isle.
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