Danger!
In every celebrity mom interview I’ve ever read, the interviewer asks the gorgeous, toned, trim actress about how they find time to exercise and the celebrity says “Oh I don’t work out. Chasing after my kids is all the exercise I need!” To which I have always said “Bullshit, Celebrity Mom. Unless you gave birth to that 6’3″ 37 year old trainer you meet with three times a week, those abs are from hard work, not a couple days on the playground.”
Now that Baby Evan is not just mobile but ohmigod-someone-quick-grab-him-he-has-a-lighter-where-the-hell-did-he-get-a-lighter???? mobile, my skepticism towards those celebrity mothers has dropped about a zillion points. Ok, so they probably still meet with their trainer every other day but child chasing is a genuine aerobic activity. It’s shocking how quickly a baby can go from quiet play to extreme peril, especially if you live in a death trap old house. Apparently the hissing and popping of old cast-iron radiators is a siren song to babies, calling to them to come and put your mouth on meeeeeeee I taste like sunshine and dog hair and dried leaves and deliciousness. Baby Evan has started pulling open the cookie sheet storage warming drawer under my stove and trying to climb in it while the stove is on. Listen child, I know it’s cold in here but I don’t think baking yourself is the answer. I’m suddenly very very aware of just how hard that tile we installed in the kitchen is, thanks to the horrible CRACK sound it makes when it meets the baby’s head.
It doesn’t help that E and I have totally different parenting philosophies when it comes to baby-chasing. E’s attitude is “Let him figure it out, he has to learn eventually” while I follow more of a “Maybe it’s not such a great idea to let an 8 month old decide for himself what’s safe” line of thought. Call me crazy. I think “Danger!” is an important concept for Baby Evan to comprehend, especially at an age where “No!” just makes him laugh.
No! Don’t bite the dog! Giggle.
No! Don’t climb into the open dishwasher! Hahahahaha. (I swear to God the baby thinks he’s going to find the way to Narnia in that damn dishwasher. I couldn’t keep him out with a cattle prod. Not that I would try. I have no idea where to get a cattle prod.)
No! Don’t eat that bleach pen! Hysterical cackling.
So for the next six (four? eight? how long exactly does it take to go from cruiser to toddler?) months, I’m going to be spending a lot of time crawling around grabbing things from the baby and rearranging the interlocking foam floor squares over our kitchen floor. And just in case my baby CAN read, I’m being strategic in my rearranging.
Tags: baby evan, challenges, danger, milestones, pictures
It only gets worse when they start walking. Especially if you have stairs.
I love the foam squares–you are hilarious! That tile looks really nice, by the way. Hard, yes, but very, very nice. And I think the only way to really and truly live in a baby-proof home is if said home is a padded cell. Right? And even then…..I’m sure they could find something dangerous.
This had me LOLing so hard….and then I got to the pic at the end and cracked up even harder.
We have that same kind of old steam heat in our place, and every time it kicks in and that hissing and banging starts Ivy stops whatever she is doing to stare at the radiator. So I can imagine, when she’s mobile she will beeline to it. I’ve told my husband multiple times that when she starts to crawl and stand we have to get rid of our coffee table b/c with metal legs and pointy metal corners that thing is an accident waiting to happen.
When I was pregnant we had this giant metal and glass coffee table. One horrible dream and I woke up in a sweat demanding that Brandon get rid of it NOW. =) I love doing the pre-pediatrician look over too. Let’s see that bruise is from running and slamming into the wall, that one is from plopping her butt down on a toy in the bath tub, oh and that one is from repeatedly crawling under the coffee table and whacking her head on it.
I have a story. I’m not sure if it will make you feel better or worse but I think it’s pretty funny.
When I was a year and a half old I was in the family room (the room off the kitchen with the fireplace). Somehow in about 90 seconds of being unsupervised, I did something. To this day, no one knows what but I starting screaming like someone had stabbed me and was grabbing my right arm. My parents took me to the doctors who had no idea what I had done either but somehow knew enough to say that when I was going through puberty (only through puberty, not after), my right arm might fall asleep suddenly and randomly. So when that happened when I was 12, I told my mom and got the story. By the time I was 15 or 16 it had gone away.
I like to think that since I survived all of my crazy childhood injuries (and boy to I have a TON of them) are good conversation starters. :) Leet me know details about Christmas.
Hilarious! I hate to say it, but our toddler wreaks more havoc than she did as a cruiser. We’ve pretty much moved our entire living room up into the attic. I stopped one step short of covering the house with padding. Hang in there!
Our apartment used to have hot water heat, but is currently heated with forced air. The cast iron radiators are still in place, however, and Niko loves to pull himself up with them and cruise along them. I am SO FREAKING GLAD we don’t use them for heat, as radiators get HOT when they’re on, and when you put furniture in front of them the heat doesn’t radiate as it should.
I adore your DANGER sign in the kitchen.