We Have Liftoff

Mere weeks after being put in the BBR at daycare, Aidan has managed to somewhat escape the shackles of gravity. Yes, that's right. He can now officially crawl. It just sort of happened... one minute he was sitting on the floor, playing with a toy, and the next he was moving towards his basket of other toys. I think it kind of surprised him too, honestly. He got a look on his face like "Whoa, I'm moving. Mom? Dad? Not touching me? Soooo....what you're telling me is I'm doing this on my own? THAT is supremely cool." Of course, we made such a ruckus jumping about, clapping and warbling that it kind of shocked him into stopping, and it took a day or so for him to remember how to do it, but still-- he's right, that IS supremely cool.

Of course, his main goal in life now is to play with the cords to our video game systems, thus demonstrating that there is, in fact, a "gamer gene". So far we've managed to foil his attempts by placing a large box in front of the area, but yesterday he figured out how to pull up on said box and was reaching across it to try to get the cords. This has also prompted the cats to realize that this small pink thing is actually a rapidly growing version of us, and as such have begun to treat him accordingly. They're gingerly rubbing up against him occasionally, but still have a healthy, deep rooted, and wholely justified fear of his little grabby hands. He did pet Darwin once, but for the most part he sqeuals, grabs a hunk of feline, and pulls. Since his hands are almost always either sticky or wet, this means he ends up looking like a partially transformed were-baby afterwards. But now that he's mobile, he can chase (very slowly, he's not terribly good at it yet) the cats about. However, in "Crawl Mode" (yes, I think of my son as a small Transformer...what's your point) his field of vision is somewhat limited, and when a cat jumps up and away from he it really confuses him. I think he thinks the cats can actually fly because of this. More to the point, in Crawl Mode, his hands are busy and thus cannot grab the cats-- so they've got a reprieve until he can walk.

Speaking of crawling and walking, this has prompted us top buy and install baby gates. And by "install" I mean "leave the gates in their packages leaning against various walls in the house". To my credit, I DID manage to install the most important gate (the one at the top of the stairs) but at a terrible price. I think that thing took 5 or 6 years off my life, and I'm sure Aidan learned some interesting phrases which will later result in him getting sent home from school with a note. See, we have a metal banister, and gates on stairways MUST be hardware mounted for safety. So, some company (I forge the name right now, and am waaaay too lazy, sleep deprived, and sick to look it up) sells an adapter kit for just this situation. Lucky me. I bought two, with the intent of installing one at the top and one at the bottom of the stairs. Well, for the low low price of only $9.95 this kit consists of: one 1x1 33" piece of wood, 2 oversize zip-ties, 2 screws, 2 wall anchors, and a set of instructions. Seriously. You can imagine how happy I was to find this out. You might also be able to imagine how happy I was to discover that the screws used for the hardware installation of the gates we bought require at least 1.5" of wood, meaning I had to use BOTH kits on one gate. Add to that the fact that the screws included with the gate strip faster than Pamela Anderson in a room full of singles, and you have one supremely unhappy, sweaty, cursing Dad.

The next gate I install I'm going to call to have paramedics on hand so that when I DO stroke out, someone can revive me.

Or at least finish installing the damn gate.

I'm not picky.