New Baby Skills and the Babyproofing Necessary to Counteract Said Skills

Nick has been displaying some new baby skills lately. Like slapping daddy five, when he's in the right mood. He hasn't figured out "Up high" yet, but he's working on it. As you can see, Nick easily pulls up to our cocktail table and walks around it. He can hold on with one hand and grab his bottle. Then he leans his head back to try to drink, and falls and bumps his head. At least he understands gravity; he knows that he has to lean either his head or the bottle back to get the milk.

Nicholas also climbs stairs. Yesterday he climbed up five stairs, with me behind him, of course. We've been trying to prevent him from going up, but he makes a beeline for the stairs every chance he gets. Molly (one of our cats) sleeps on the stairs, and he likes to chase her as she retreats backwards up one stair at a time. She does not like his "gentle" caresses, his hair pulling, or his face slapping.

He's been teething lately, poor guy. I think it's the upper two that are coming in now. I'd probably be ticked off if my gums were swollen, too.

This afternoon I realized that Nick can strip the wallpaper off of the walls. Then he eats the strips. I'm not sure how to stop him from doing this. (I immediately got the wallpaper from him, but still.) The cats have already started the job, and now he's finishing the wallpaper stripping job. Sigh. He's pretty cute, though, I'll give him that.

We've been using the baby cage to block Nick from all sorts of things lately. We're blocking the stairs, the entertainment center, and the dining room.

Before my eyes, Nick is changing from a baby to a little boy. Even his pout is adorable, although it's also infuriating. It's hard to believe that Nick is 10 1/2 months old. Wow. The difference is astonishing. See him today? Well, below is his picture as a newborn. Huge difference. He's no longer a 6 lb. weakling. Today Nick weighed in at 21 pounds. Carrying him in the carseat is quite a load. I guess we've certainly been feeding him enough. :)

To your right: Nicholas on November 23, 2008. This was only three days after we left the hospital.

Teeny Weeny Zucchini and a Huge Bag of Babyproofing Supplies

Now that Nick is crawling, my life has become one long series of "No honey," "Not in your mouth," and simply "Arghh!" My baby has found freedom, and he is using this freedom to wreak havoc and destroy everything in sight. Yesterday he found our one remaining downstairs bookshelf and decided that the books would be better off on the floor, ripped. Thus the reason that our other bookshelves have been emptied of books and filled with toys. We will have to do the same with this shelf, it seems.




Because of all of the baby movement going on, Greg and I decided to do some additional babyproofing this weekend. Cabinet locks, bi-fold door locks, toilet locks, door handles: we needed everything. Most of all, we needed gates for the top and bottom of our stairs. I was lucky enough to have two of those 20% off on one item coupons for Buy Buy Baby, so off we went.

As our cart started to fill up and my wallet started to empty, Nicholas rejoiced in flirting with every baby girl who passed us in the aisles. The little girls seemed charmed by his wicked grin. Nick's little onesie says "Little Rascal," and he is, especially with that little tuft of hair sticking up.

Well over $200 later, we decided to head up to Yorktown. Greg was looking for some incense, and I was looking for baby clothing deals. I didn't find any deals, but Greg bought a ton of incense. He's really nice about only burning one stick per evening, though, because I'm mildly allergic to it. That or it irritates my asthma. One or the other. But Yorktown has a pretty fountain that Nick thought was awesome.

Nick and his daddy sat by the fountain while I scoured the clearance racks at Gymboree, The Children's Place, and Baby Gap. The clerks there must know that I am one of "those" people, because I walk in and go directly to the back of the store.

Unless I have a really good coupon or a gift card, I only go to one place. I quickly scan the final clearance rack, and if there's nothing good, I leave. I know how much things cost on ebay, so unless a store is going to beat that, I don't even bother.

Well, my squash and zucchini are finally up to something. It is probably too cold and too late in the season to get any nice-sized veggies, but my plant is making a cute little yellow squash. I think these are delicious, so it'll be okay even if it doesn't get too big.

It was in the 60s and cloudy all weekend. I think it's way too early for fall weather, but what I think doesn't matter.

The zucchini is slightly bigger, but we'll see what happens with the 40 degree temperatures that are due tonight. One thing I have to remember next year is to give my zucchini more room. I put too many plants in my little square foot garden. Notice how the strawberry plants were overwhelmed by the zucchini. These are the ever bearing ones that do two fruits in a year, but I'm pretty sure they won't this year; the zucchini are covering them all up. I might make one big bed of strawberries and then do a whole big vegetable garden next to it. Nick can help with the digging.