And it begins!
Ah, Adrian. My dear, sweet Adrian. All of nineteen months now in age. And apparently getting a head start on his Terrible Twos. Oh, joy.
Now, do keep in mind that this is the same child who tried holding his head up before he ever left the hospital. Oh, yeah, 'tis true. Ask my mom. Anyway.
See, little Adrian loves climbing, and is essentially fearless in this regard (though he seems to be wary of heights, oddly enough). LOVES climbing. Will climb ANYTHING he can get his knees up on. This includes stairs, his tricycle (by which I mean he STANDS on the seat), people, sofas, chairs, toilets, and the fireplace. This is why, not too long ago, I bought him a nice little Little Tykes castle playset thing he can climb around on (which has a little climbing ramp thing and a slide, plus a tunnel he can crawl through and, for no apparent reason, a ship's wheel. Go figure.). He mainly uses it outside (which, for the record, is apparently his new favorite word. He wants to be outside pretty much 24/7), but it could be moved indoors if necessary. Indoors, however, he'll climb anything.
And, today, I spent most of the day chasing the little munchkin off the couch and fireplace. I'm not so terribly afraid he'll hurt himself right now. I'm more afraid for the objects in the vicinity, because he's a grabby little thing and apparently came equipped with Gadget Arms (tm). He's taken/knocked down the photos of my great-grandparents Sykes several times--and those are freaking old photos dating back to roughly the Civil War era. Yikes. But, with the fireplace, he likes to bang on the screen (it's one of those newfangled gas ones, see) with his bare hand, and I swear he'll get burned one of these days pulling that stunt while it's on. But, literally, we had to pull him away probably 20 times in an hour. Arg--Adrian's not too big on the "listening to authority" thing when it comes to, well, anything.
Now, part of me wants to just ignore him while he's getting into stuff that he shouldn't but can't hurt until he DOES incur a minor injury and realizes "OMG! That hurts! Better not do it again!" (a la Jeff Foxworthy: "Let him pull it down on his head a few times--he'll learn!"). Apparently, though, this makes me a Bad Mommy according to my parents (more specifically, Dad, but, eh, what else is new? He usually finds at least one thing a day to yell at me about). Argh. But, he's not listening--in fact, he's openly defiant (not in a hostile way, more in the "Oh, what a fun game!" way). Time-outs are not having an impact. Neither is smacking his little hand (though that never really worked for ME at that age either). Popping him on the bottom just enough to startle him... the jury's still out--we haven't used that tactic much. And distracting him works for all of about half a second nine times out of ten.
I know the key to this is to be consistent since he's just pushing boundaries, but damn, it's getting really old really quickly, the little twerp. -_-
In other Adrian news, he's shortening his afternoon naps (which is bad for me because now I accomplish next to NOTHING during the day since I can only get things done while he's asleep), and I'm still pretty sure he's working on those two-year molars. We can only hope it's over soon.
In other baby news, apparently my nephew is trying to do much the same thing as Adrian. Oy. My mother is having a baby shower for her coworker here at our house in about two weeks--don't ask me why we're hosting. I'm pretty sure I'll need to be around just to keep Adrian out of the way--a bit sad since that's the same day as the Democratic County Convention, so I probably won't be in attendance there (though my dad will be--he's the precinct delegate for Senator Clinton after all!), even after all those reminder fliers I handed out for the primary! At least I got my present for the mom-to-be taken care of: I knitted a little hat and booties set for the little one--it's probably JUST the right size for his homecoming. I'm working on a set in the same pattern, slightly enlarged, for my niece-to-be (yes, folks, it really is going to be a girl! Yay! Her name will be Kalli Ann! ^_^), and I finished the booties yesterday, but the hat is being obnoxious--I've tried starting it about three times now and have yet to get past about the fifth row of stitching in any attempt thus far. I blame the random Phantom Stitches that keep appearing out of nowhere and throwing off my count, and apparently don't exist until I've completely ripped out the whole thing trying to figure out where I went wrong. This is why I don't think I'll EVER take a liking to circular knitting--at least not on double-pointed needles (necessary for the project in this case). I'll get it worked out eventually--I still have until at least August to finish it, after all, and I got the last hat done in just under a week.
Now, do keep in mind that this is the same child who tried holding his head up before he ever left the hospital. Oh, yeah, 'tis true. Ask my mom. Anyway.
See, little Adrian loves climbing, and is essentially fearless in this regard (though he seems to be wary of heights, oddly enough). LOVES climbing. Will climb ANYTHING he can get his knees up on. This includes stairs, his tricycle (by which I mean he STANDS on the seat), people, sofas, chairs, toilets, and the fireplace. This is why, not too long ago, I bought him a nice little Little Tykes castle playset thing he can climb around on (which has a little climbing ramp thing and a slide, plus a tunnel he can crawl through and, for no apparent reason, a ship's wheel. Go figure.). He mainly uses it outside (which, for the record, is apparently his new favorite word. He wants to be outside pretty much 24/7), but it could be moved indoors if necessary. Indoors, however, he'll climb anything.
And, today, I spent most of the day chasing the little munchkin off the couch and fireplace. I'm not so terribly afraid he'll hurt himself right now. I'm more afraid for the objects in the vicinity, because he's a grabby little thing and apparently came equipped with Gadget Arms (tm). He's taken/knocked down the photos of my great-grandparents Sykes several times--and those are freaking old photos dating back to roughly the Civil War era. Yikes. But, with the fireplace, he likes to bang on the screen (it's one of those newfangled gas ones, see) with his bare hand, and I swear he'll get burned one of these days pulling that stunt while it's on. But, literally, we had to pull him away probably 20 times in an hour. Arg--Adrian's not too big on the "listening to authority" thing when it comes to, well, anything.
Now, part of me wants to just ignore him while he's getting into stuff that he shouldn't but can't hurt until he DOES incur a minor injury and realizes "OMG! That hurts! Better not do it again!" (a la Jeff Foxworthy: "Let him pull it down on his head a few times--he'll learn!"). Apparently, though, this makes me a Bad Mommy according to my parents (more specifically, Dad, but, eh, what else is new? He usually finds at least one thing a day to yell at me about). Argh. But, he's not listening--in fact, he's openly defiant (not in a hostile way, more in the "Oh, what a fun game!" way). Time-outs are not having an impact. Neither is smacking his little hand (though that never really worked for ME at that age either). Popping him on the bottom just enough to startle him... the jury's still out--we haven't used that tactic much. And distracting him works for all of about half a second nine times out of ten.
I know the key to this is to be consistent since he's just pushing boundaries, but damn, it's getting really old really quickly, the little twerp. -_-
In other Adrian news, he's shortening his afternoon naps (which is bad for me because now I accomplish next to NOTHING during the day since I can only get things done while he's asleep), and I'm still pretty sure he's working on those two-year molars. We can only hope it's over soon.
In other baby news, apparently my nephew is trying to do much the same thing as Adrian. Oy. My mother is having a baby shower for her coworker here at our house in about two weeks--don't ask me why we're hosting. I'm pretty sure I'll need to be around just to keep Adrian out of the way--a bit sad since that's the same day as the Democratic County Convention, so I probably won't be in attendance there (though my dad will be--he's the precinct delegate for Senator Clinton after all!), even after all those reminder fliers I handed out for the primary! At least I got my present for the mom-to-be taken care of: I knitted a little hat and booties set for the little one--it's probably JUST the right size for his homecoming. I'm working on a set in the same pattern, slightly enlarged, for my niece-to-be (yes, folks, it really is going to be a girl! Yay! Her name will be Kalli Ann! ^_^), and I finished the booties yesterday, but the hat is being obnoxious--I've tried starting it about three times now and have yet to get past about the fifth row of stitching in any attempt thus far. I blame the random Phantom Stitches that keep appearing out of nowhere and throwing off my count, and apparently don't exist until I've completely ripped out the whole thing trying to figure out where I went wrong. This is why I don't think I'll EVER take a liking to circular knitting--at least not on double-pointed needles (necessary for the project in this case). I'll get it worked out eventually--I still have until at least August to finish it, after all, and I got the last hat done in just under a week.