Scooting to Independence

The days are numbered. Mitch is so close to crawling it's scary. I have no idea how to child-proof my apartment, and silly me thought it an unnecessary procedure, as I am right by my child 24/7.

No, no, this is not so. Mike's friend was staying with us this past week, and left his laptop on the floor. At this point Mitch could only scoot around in circles, but this particular day he decided to move past his brightly colored toys on to more dangerous ventures. I was on the phone, cleaning the kitchen, turned around and Mitch was gnawing on said friend's computer cord. Nice. Remind me not to parent and talk on the phone at the same time. For that matter, lets not clean the kitchen and parent either. Bwha ha ha ha......

I really like Mitchell's crawling technique though. He thinks he knows how it's done.... push up on his arms....start kicking his legs so ferociously you'd think he'd want to go somewhere..... then a take off motion with his arms, like a mighty eagle. Can you see this? It looks like an imitation of a motorized bird. Maybe he thinks he can fly?

Overall, I'm sensing he's a pretty independant child. He enjoys grabing the spoon from my grasp while I'm trying to feed him. I guess he can do a better job. A better job of missing his mouth and getting it all over his hair, clothes, feet, high chair, floor, my clothes, my hair- you name it. And while all of this is going on, he becomes aware that if he pulls hard enough at his bib, fast enough, no one can stop him from wearing it as a hat.

And he thinks he can make his own bedtime. He has learned that if after dinner, bath, books, songs, he kicks his legs and keeps his eyes open long enough, mom will give up and let him play. And most of the time, he's right. Ah... life.

And the whole binky thing. He can take it out of his mouth, hold it in his hand, and then whine till someone helps him put it back in. This makes for long, long, sleepless nights. Just one more reason I don't really like binkies. But he loves it so much, why stop now? I think when he sees all the other kids in Jr. High that don't use one, he'll stop. I'm sure of it.