For all his brilliance and accomplishments, Elias is at a very dangerous age: post-mobility, pre-sense. He seems determined to harm himself. He seems magnetically pulled to the item in the room that poses the greatest bodily threat to him. It's nerve-wracking, especially in combination with the chaos that always attends moving, and the myriad distractions. Isaac running amok for one thing, and then all the packing and unpacking going on, and then normal life also somehow going on (laundry, dinner, dishes, etc.) And in the midst of it all the baby has chosen this exact time to learn to crawl and put things in his mouth.
Example from about two weeks ago: I was sorting and rearranging the kitchen cupboards at the new house. Unpacking a box or two, taking inventory, deciding which should be sort of a "pantry" cupboard and which should be dishes, etc. Elias was crawling around in the floor within a few feet of me. I was keeping an eye on him, somewhat, but when I look back on it there were seconds mixed in, indeed whole minutes, in which I was not directly looking at him. Okay, so at some point he started to get fussy. I picked him up, took him into the other room, nursed him. He went to sleep for a little nap. I set him in his crib and walked back to the kitchen where I resumed my project. This was all utterly routine. Then after a while he woke up. I got him up and fixed him some lunch. We sat together and ate. Routine, routine.
And then…
I discovered that there was a piece of cellophane in his mouth.
Just a clear, deadly piece of filmy plastic about the size of a quarter, that somehow he had held in his mouth, WHILE nursing, and I hadn't noticed it. And WHILE sleeping, when I was in the other room and he surely could have choked. And WHILE eating!!!
Oh, dear GOD ABOVE.
So that's one example.
Here's another. This house is really truly FILLED with outlets. If you come here, I dare you to try and count them. There are just tons and tons of them, which may be part of why our electrical system was a complete and utter mess and needed major work before we moved in. We've gone around and tried to cap them all with those little outlet covers. And yet I keep finding more, or more to the point, Elias keeps finding more. The other day he was sitting next to one outlet and started to scream. Again, mea culpa, as a few nano seconds had clearly passed when I wasn't looking directly at him. I picked him and checked for damage, but couldn't find anything wrong. It wasn't until it happened again yesterday in exactly the same place and manner that I chose to touch the outlet myself.
I got a huge shock.
Seems the outlet cover wasn't covering it right, and it was possible to get quite a jolt nonetheless.
This upset me a great deal– while I'm grateful that the shock wasn't of a truly dangerous variety, I'm miserable to think of how painful and stunning it must have been for him.
Today, again, I found Elias with a little piece of foil in his mouth from god knows where.
And I haven't even started on the falling. The kid looks like he's been repeatedly battered about the head, especially the forehead. He needs to wear a hat to cover his bruises, or perhaps one of those little padded helmets people are marketing these days for just this reason. I lament that at his peak cuteness, a few months ago, I didn't take him in for professional photos. He's still adorable now, of course, but the bruises are not so attractive and his two little upper teeth buds are marring his bright gummy smile.
Let's look at it this way: accomplishments:
1) Crawling: speed and confidence
2) standing up, holding on, and going places (letting go… and crash!)
3) teeth: bucking tradition, he's doing the upper ones first. Always efficient, he's doing them both at the same time.
4) sign language: only just nine months old and yet he already knows three signs– nursing, more, and all done. Which pretty much summarizes his priorities.
5) growth: he's already wearing mostly 12-month clothes, and wearing things Isaac wore when he was over a year old.
But early predictions of his stunning intelligence were sadly premature, I fear. … Even a lab rat would not have been shocked by that outlet twice.
6) Well, I won't call it "hair" but his ever downier downy fluff is really golden and soft. It's just gilding the lily as far as I'm concerned. He's gorgeous.
7) interests: other than nursing, breasts and foods of various kinds, he is primarily interested in the low architectural features– outlets and cords, heating vents, drawers and drawer pulls, that type of thing
I realize he's marvelous and perfect. I couldn't ask for a better baby. He needs to learn about the world and the freedom to explore. I just really need him to get through this particular phase (as I pause to remove a dirty sandal from his mouth) in one piece.