My Son is Now Officially "A Handful"
Well, it's finally happened. Last week was Ethan's birthday and, that very day, he officially became "a handful." It's funny, all of the mother's I spoke to at the local playground (because God forbid that you ever see any men playing with their children during business hours - sorry, didn't mean to start my rant quite yet) kept telling me how good I had it and "Just wait 'till he starts to walk." Not Ethan. He pretty much insists on doing things his way.
Last week he did not begin walking (although he "cruises" beautifully and has repeatedly taken a few steps before falling on his butt). He began climbing. And I mean everything he could get his hot little hands on. The sofas, the armchair...he's even made it to the top of the stairs without stopping (with one of us right behind him, of course). The first problem with this is that his favorite stepstools are his parents. He'll come running over and climb up on us, as if he wants a kiss or cuddle. But no. All he wants is a foothold. He then proceeds to grab the sofa, plant both feet firmly on your stomach, and pushes as hard as he can. If he can't quite make it....no problem. He just grabs a bunch of your hair and uses that to finish pulling himself up.
Of course, once he's up there, he wants to go higher and tries desperately to continue his journey by looking for a foothold on the back of the sofa. He's already done well enough to pull off one of the blinds. The real problem is that once he's up on the sofa he's able to crawl just as quickly as he can on the floor. Which means we've also had to repeatedly pull him off of the two end tables (previously safe) before he reaches something that we don't want him to.
The other fun part is his creativity in the matter. We had tied a pillow around the front of the end table in order to secure the drawers because we hadn't been able to find any drawer-locks that we liked which didn't also ruin the table; I think our solution was not only ingenous, but high-tech and very attractive. In any event, one of the first things he learned was that he was able to create little footholds by pushing the pillow in, and then pushed down on the top in order to give himself an easy step up. Fun, fun, fun. My personal favorite is the fact that he's already learned how to pull over a toy in order to use it as a step to reach what he wants. He has already climbed up on a small plastic table and made it halfway into his "toy-shelf" before we managed to pull him out. Not to mention the obvious fact that he can easily push this table over so that he can climb up onto the sofa whenever he wants. He's even started to try and climb up on things simply by gaining the two inches that he gets by standing on one of his (rather wobbly) blocks.
His latest trick is that he's now begun climbing the end table in his bedroom (it has sort-of an inlaid series of cross-hatched pieces of wood). I wouldn't mind this so much if it weren't right next to his changing table. Luckily, it hasn't occurred to him yet, but the changing table has a natural foothold as the bottom shelf is only about two inches off the ground (I've seen him reach footholds at least five inches high). If he ever decides that this would be a fun thing to scale, we're going to have a problem; the changing-table isn't nearly secure enough to handle the weight of a one-year-old climbing up one side of it. Now all we have to do is figure out how to secure the darn thing to the wall! Or do without, I suppose.
Ahh. The joys of having children. Permalink
Last week he did not begin walking (although he "cruises" beautifully and has repeatedly taken a few steps before falling on his butt). He began climbing. And I mean everything he could get his hot little hands on. The sofas, the armchair...he's even made it to the top of the stairs without stopping (with one of us right behind him, of course). The first problem with this is that his favorite stepstools are his parents. He'll come running over and climb up on us, as if he wants a kiss or cuddle. But no. All he wants is a foothold. He then proceeds to grab the sofa, plant both feet firmly on your stomach, and pushes as hard as he can. If he can't quite make it....no problem. He just grabs a bunch of your hair and uses that to finish pulling himself up.
Of course, once he's up there, he wants to go higher and tries desperately to continue his journey by looking for a foothold on the back of the sofa. He's already done well enough to pull off one of the blinds. The real problem is that once he's up on the sofa he's able to crawl just as quickly as he can on the floor. Which means we've also had to repeatedly pull him off of the two end tables (previously safe) before he reaches something that we don't want him to.
The other fun part is his creativity in the matter. We had tied a pillow around the front of the end table in order to secure the drawers because we hadn't been able to find any drawer-locks that we liked which didn't also ruin the table; I think our solution was not only ingenous, but high-tech and very attractive. In any event, one of the first things he learned was that he was able to create little footholds by pushing the pillow in, and then pushed down on the top in order to give himself an easy step up. Fun, fun, fun. My personal favorite is the fact that he's already learned how to pull over a toy in order to use it as a step to reach what he wants. He has already climbed up on a small plastic table and made it halfway into his "toy-shelf" before we managed to pull him out. Not to mention the obvious fact that he can easily push this table over so that he can climb up onto the sofa whenever he wants. He's even started to try and climb up on things simply by gaining the two inches that he gets by standing on one of his (rather wobbly) blocks.
His latest trick is that he's now begun climbing the end table in his bedroom (it has sort-of an inlaid series of cross-hatched pieces of wood). I wouldn't mind this so much if it weren't right next to his changing table. Luckily, it hasn't occurred to him yet, but the changing table has a natural foothold as the bottom shelf is only about two inches off the ground (I've seen him reach footholds at least five inches high). If he ever decides that this would be a fun thing to scale, we're going to have a problem; the changing-table isn't nearly secure enough to handle the weight of a one-year-old climbing up one side of it. Now all we have to do is figure out how to secure the darn thing to the wall! Or do without, I suppose.
Ahh. The joys of having children. Permalink
posted by Rob | 10:24 AM
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