The Week of Curious Crawling

The Week of Curious Crawling

If anyone asked me to my face, I would tell them that Baby W has been crawling for a few weeks now {give or take}--after all, he is nearly 9 months old. The reality (as I now know), is that he has been truly crawling for only about a week. I don't really think his break dancing worm maneuver he used to do to get from point A to point B really constituted crawling.

So when everyone would ask me "How much harder is life now that Lil W is crawling?", I told them it was pretty much the same. Ha! Now, I know that's because he wasn't crawling at all!

This week's addition of true hands and knees crawling has been a life changer in our house.

For example...

1. The cushions no longer live in their neat and pretty little home on my couch; instead, they have been strategically placed in a baby barricade all around my living room in a futile attempt to keep my Lil Monster in an area where he can cause the least amount of damage.

2. I now need a step stool and pads to protect my rib cage in order to get my son out of his jail-pit of a crib. Due to Lil W pulling himself up to a standing position and then proceeding to climb on top of his bumper until he is only inches from throwing himself over the edge of the crib {all the while with a huge dimply grin on his face}, we have been forced to change the height to its lowest setting--and his adorable bedding just doesn't look the same this way.

3. I have learned that no amount of child protective paraphernalia could make my house Lil W safe. This babe seems to have a honing device for all things sharp, fragile, hot, electric, and non-edible that exist in our home. I can have a what-seems-perfectly-constructed barricade in place, and this little guy always finds the one crevice that he can squish himself through as an escape from the land of soft and educational baby toys to the land of sharp and harmful household decor. No, I did not find him chewing on the end of the cable TV cord today; a Mother of the Year like myself would never be so irresponsible.

Here's how things go:

All pillows stacked nice and high to prevent an escaping baby.

He may look innocent, but he is actually planning his escape...

Now on to stage one of his escape--removal of highest pillow.

Stage Two: Attempt to convince Mommy that you are just innocently playing--and not in fact planning the third and final stage of your escape.  The hubby and I call those his Dr. Evil hands.

But Mommy doesn't believe you {even if you are making that adorable face with your hands neatly folded like a good little boy}, so she restacks the pillows and puts you back in the cushion jail...

So you wriggle your body through the one tiny crevice of pillows

 to show Mommy your "mad face"...

And then you look around and realize that you have, in fact, made it to the other side, and so

you turn that frown upside down:

Needless to say, some things have had to change around our home--and aside from the remodel of my couch cushions, those changes have been for the better. Changes such as spending time with my Lil guy, instead of just passing the time. {And, yes, I cringe at the very admittance that I would ever ever ever just pass the time with my adorable babe--but the reality is this happens sometimes, maybe more than we want to admit}.

But this week, the week of curious crawling, Lil W received an overload of Mommy-time. Because with crawling comes more curiosity which breeds more energy which equals one hyper baby sick-and-tired of our boring and monotonous home life.

And you know what? As it turns out--this whole curious crawling thing has been a blessing in disguise--because now I've realized that I needed this little wake up call.

A wake up call that this adorable and curious stage is passing quickly {too quickly}.

A wake up call that it's time to take a deep breath, set aside the to-do list and spend the next 3 hours just watching the simple pleasure of my son picking grass at the park {because life won't always be this simple}.

A wake up call that it's time to set aside the cell phone and email inbox and hold him while he takes his nap and just admire his slow breathing and peaceful lips as he burrows his head into my arms {because he won't cuddle like this forever}.

A wake up call that it's ok, it's actually even fantastic to just BE with my babe without multitasking a billion other chores {because the laundry will still be there tomorrow, but he won't always be learning to crawl}.