Tuesday, October 19, 2010

We have movement!

Baby-Proof (def): Making your home safe for your newly-mobile child, including covering sharp edges and blocking dangerous surfaces (i.e., stairs, doors, etc.); also, a parent's worst nightmare. See "I'M NOT READY!"

So my daughter is crawling, pulling up, doing all of her pre-walking stuff.

Three words: Wow! Yay! F%$K!

Wow! - It's becoming increasingly clear to me that the cliche "they grow up so fast" is not just a trite saying; children really do grow fast. Nine & 1/2 months ago, my daughter was a newborn. We had no idea what her personality would be, when she would start to vocalize, get her first teeth, etc. Now she's a happy, smiling, squealing, mischievous ball of fun who babbles ("ogoly-ogoly-ogoly" is a favorite phrase) with eight teeth and more on the way. She's so interactive and engaging - just plain fun - that I have to remind myself she's not even a year old yet... and yet, a small part of me misses the days when I would hold her and she would open her eyes and melt my heart with a small gurgle or a grasp of my finger in her tiny hands.

Yay! - After 8 months of butt-scooting and "almost" crawling (laying on her belly and pulling herself with her arms Army-man style), my daughter started crawling, pulling herself up and even trying free standing - all in ONE MONTH! It seriously made my head spin. My wife and I were starting to wonder if she was developmentally-delayed, even though I was a late-crawler, too. Well, we ain't worried no more.

F%$K! - Now we have to baby-proof our house. When we bought our house in May, it was semi-baby proofed - some latches on drawers and cabinets, plug covers, the door to the basement had a handle protector... but it also had a few things that still needed to be done. We have to get a gate for the stairs (curiously, the top of the stairs was set up with a gate, but not the bottom - kids can fall down stairs from any stair, right?). And oh yeah - now we have to make sure closet doors are closed and there aren't any objects at the two-foot level that can be pulled down on top of our daughter.

But one of the best parts is we can now play games with her that are interactive and that she can move around... roll stuff to her, she pushes it back. Put her on one side of the room and she crawls towards us (or away, her choice). Really, it's just unbelievable how far she's come.

And to think - she's not even a year old yet!