As if life isn’t difficult enough running after the crawling squealler. After a mere week of crawling, Leina has decided to up the ante.

In our new house, we have a second floor. After entering the front door, there’s an open stairway that runs along the wall as you come inside. You step up one step onto a little landing, then turn right and proceed up the stairs. Since Leina went mobile, this landing has turned into a giant “no-touch” repository. Anything Leina manages to find that isn’t baby friendly (ie, screwdrivers, nails, small choking hazards, dirty old shoes, etc.) I deposit on the landing and slowing stow the items away upstairs as I find time. This has worked fine until ten minutes ago.

I was sitting in the kitchen doing bills when I heard Leian take of. (Basically, she started squealling which is just her way of saying, “I’m enganging the four wheel drive baby!”). I didn’t pay much attention as she motored out of sight into the front room because I know there’s nothing harmful in it. After a few moments, the squealling stopped and Leina settled in to play. I finished up paying my last bill and proceeded to see where she was and what she was up to.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the front room and she was no where to be seen!! Now, this room is almost totally empty except for a coffee table, an end table and some cardboard boxes. There is nowhere for a small, curious baby to hide. Right before the panic set in, I caught a glimpse of a chubby foot around the corner by the front door. Yes, you guessed it. Leina was sitting on the staircase landing gnawing on my ratty old slipper. Utterly stunned, I picked her up, put her down on the ground and watched in awe as she pulled herself back up the stair and over to the bulging pile of “no-touch” goodies.

She can do stairs.

Lord help me, I’m so not ready for this. I keep looking over my sholder expecting to see her crawling into this room. I wouldn’t even blink if she somehow managed to get out of her crib, open the door, and make her way in here. I mean, she can do stairs for pete sake. What’s next, driving?

Hmmmm, I think I better go hide the car keys now, just in case…..

Here is one of the latest examples of the munchkin’s crawling activities caught on video. I’m putting her on the floor in the family room and she promptly starts to crawl out of the room past all over her toys and clutter. She constantly does this so we’ve coined it “threading the needle.” In part II she continues heading for the dog’s water dish – her favorite destination – until stopped by her disgusted parents. To show you how much she loves Artie’s water bowl we’ve included the now infamous “don’t touch” video. In which it’s difficult to tell if Leina really wants to play with the water or aggravate Chrissie.

Threading the Needle pt. I (1:06 ~7.5Mb)

Threading the Needle pt. II (0:26 ~2.9Mb)

Don’t Touch (1:20 ~9.1Mb)

Well it’s less than a month to go before our anniversary so it’s about time I started figuring out the ‘perfect’ present to give my wonderful wife. Now, in the past, my gift choices have not been up to par – some would say down-right awful. There’s no need to go into detail but suffice it to say I learned a very valuable lesson one Christmas: never buy something that can later be used as a blunt implement.

This year it is our 5th anniversary and since that is a considerable number of years – all of them wonderful – I thought I’d look up the ‘official’ theme for the gift. Since 50 years is gold, 25 years silver, 10 years tin I thought 5 years must be something good like zinc or bronze. Low-and-behold my surprise when I found out from ivillage that it was wood! Imagine, a whole anniversary dedicated to my favorite material. I don’t know who the genius is who came up with these themes but I’d like to shake his hand – and it definitely must have been a guy, no woman would have chosen tin after 10 years. Here is a suggestion list from ivillage for possible wood-themed gifts:

– Bonsai plant
– Weekend away in a log cabin
– Wood plaque engraved with words of love
– Take a walk in the woods
– Photo of you or of the two of you in a wooden frame
– New fence or decking
– Wooden furniture
– Wood sculpture or carvings

Now my personal choice would be a truck load of freshly cut Western Red Cedar or a couple of new 4’x8′ sheets of 3/4″ birch plywood instead of new decking or a wood sculpture but to each his own. While I’m sure my lovely bride would be enthralled with a beautiful headshot of me in a nice wood frame, wait ’til she sees what I’m dreaming up. This is going to be the best anniversary present yet.

But, if my present fails to live up to expectations there’s always next year: iron. I’m sure Chrissie would want a couple of new wings for my tablesaw by then.

Of course what goes around comes around, look at the goodies she has coming once we have 3+ decades of bliss under our belt:

– Thirty-fifth: coral or jade
– Fortieth: rubies
– Forty-fifth: sapphires
– Fiftieth: gold
– Fifty-fifth: emeralds
– Sixtieth: diamonds

Somethings are worth waiting for aren’t they?

I am exhausted.

I passed out last night around 9:30 a mere one hour after munchkin was finally put down to bed. I just spent the whole morning making sure nothing harmful was within crawling reach downstairs. Thank goodness we have a two story house because all the dangerous stuff is now safely up here. I don’t think I’d let anyone younger than 12 wander around the upstairs unsupervised right now. It’s pretty bad.

But there is good new. Yes, we found the video camera! It was in the guest closet in a box marked jackets. Clearly, it was packed in a moment of panic but regardless of that, we now have crawling video!

But there is bad news. Kevin can’t get his computer up and running and my old frankenstein lacks the necessary card to upload video. But rest assured, Kevin has graciously announced that he will stop unpacking and focus every ounce of his pooka powers on fixing this problem.

Until then, you’ll just have to visualize the world’s cutest kid getting into EVERYTHING with a totally frazzled mom just trying to keep up and a completely freaked dog trying to stay out of her payh of destruction.

I cannot find the video camera, and I am going crazy.

I have opened every box, scattered every pile of junk and dug through every closet and drawer in this house and nothing. Nada. Not even a cable. And here’s the crazy part. When I was packing, I specifically DID NOT pack the video camera with the other electronic equipment because I was afraid Leina would start crawling soon and I wanted it handy. Ha! Instead, I kept it out until the very last day when I then packed it away so well it has been swallowed whole and now exists only in an alternative universe.

And, of course, Leina is now crawling.

Not too happy with this crawling thing. Leina is estatic but me and the dog are thinking this may not be such a great step. She is everywhere now. EVERYWHERE. It’s like she has asexually divided into three babies. One second she’s playing in the living room with her toys, the next second she’s yanking Artie’s tail in the hallway, and then she’s instantly in the kitchen trying to drink out of the pets’ water dish. Ack! How can one kid be in so many places at once. It’s un-natural I tell you.

To combate this sudden adventurous spirit, I’m working on “no touch”. When Leina gets to something off limits, I adopt my stern, I-mean-business-don’t-mess-with-me-face I spent 40 grand in law school to learn. I couple this with a stern head shake and the baby sign for touch and admonish my little sprit.

“No touch, Leina. (Shake head, stern face.) No touch.”

And her response? She stops, takes in my serious lawyer face, and then starts to laugh and reach (once again) for the forbidden item. I’m thinking I wasted a lot of money on law school ’cause Leina is not daunted at all by my stern deminor. In fact, she appears to find it quite amusing.

If I could find the *&@(*$#-ing camera I’d show you how she laughs and laughs but nooooooo, that would be too easy.

AARRRGGGH!!!! I’m off to prowl the house some more. It’s here. I just know it and I WILL find it. (Insert stern lawyer face here.)

Yes, that’s right. The cable guy came today and we are back online!

First off, I’d like to note that this is the last time I let Kevin order the cable because we now have digital cable, music channels and on demand video. That boy is such a sucker for a special it’s crazy.

We are slowly, oh so slowly, settling in. I’d say about 50% of what we own is currently unpacked. (And I mean unpack in the most literal sense of the work….out of the box and lying on the ground.) The other 50% is in boxes or scattered in the most unseemly manner throughout this house. The bad news is that I’ve burned through about 80% of my unpacking karma and now find myself lying amoungst the boxes moaning while Leina gleefully plunges her chubby little arms into each cardboard treasure chest with the utmost enthusiasm. I’m tempted to just let her unpack since she seems to enjoy flinging stuff around.

Even more exciting…. she’s starting to crawl!!! Yesterday she pulled off her first wobbly crawl. It was beyond cute. I’ve been trying to video her doing it and post it here online only there appears to be one small problem. Yup, you guessed it, I have no idea which box holds the video camera. I’m afraid by the time I find it, she’ll be onto driving or graduating from high school at the rate I’m moving.

But, we do have the 11 month Pooh picture for your enjoyment. I will harass my IT guy to post it tonight. She is simply darling right now. All demands and laughs and points. She is into EVERYTHING. I’m getting a little nervous about this new mobile turn of events. I think I liked my little sitting munchkin better than this mobile monster.

OK, enough procrastination. I’m off to hunt for the video camera…..