Another jump. Neil and Lizzie are already 18 months old. How did that happen? We've reached the climbing stage. End tables seem to be their favorite. So far the big ones involved Neil knocking the wind our of himself, a few bloody lips, and a pretty hard bang on the head for Lizzie, and lots of tears. Most of them belonged to the kids...only a few were mine.
The best/worst part of this stage is that you can't turn your back on them. For example,I was upstairs, in the middle of changing Neil's diaper, and I heard a loud crash. There was a 5 second period where I waited for the appropriate scream to follow from Lizzie. Nothing came. I scooped up Neil and ran downstairs, sure that Lizzie had knocked herself unconscious. Nope. She figured out how to get into her high chair, and pushed the tray onto the floor (the bang) so that she had more room to move around in the chair. I just stared at her. Neil and Lizzie laughed.
This is not my favorite stage. They want to do so much, but they're not quite coordinated to pull it off, and they don't understand how dangerous some of their climbing adventures are. It's a learning process for them. It's another gray hair every day for me.
Beyond that, I worry that they're going to permanently injure themselves. So far I've imagined broken bones, brain damage, worse...the paranoid thoughts of a first time mom, I'm sure, but scary nonetheless. Sometimes it's hard to remain calm and rational when your kid takes a big fall. One day they'll get it. Until then, I think I'm just going to wrap everything (including them) in bubble wrap!
RMH 8/20/13
