The First Twelve

This morning Rob left for Phoenix. He will only be gone for 30 hours but I'm not sure his son will be alive when he gets home. It all started when I dozed off on the couch this morning while he was playing. I was abruptly startled out of said nap by a crack to the skull. Gus hit me in the head with a metal rod with enough force that it bled for a while and I'm going to have a goose egg for a few days.

A couple hours later I am strapping his car seat in so we can go get milk. This task takes about 45 seconds. In the meantime, he has let himself out of the house and goes running towards the street with me running and screaming after him. I watch in horror as he runs right out in front of a car. I am so thankful that the driver was not on their phone and was not speeding. They didn't even come close to hitting him. Rob called to see how things are going seconds later and I was still so shaken up I couldn't concentrate on what he was saying. Gus was screaming because I was holding him so tight and because he was subsequently banished to his crib while I finished strapping his seat in.

We went to the grocery store where he charmed other shoppers by throwing blueberries at them and playing peekaboo. Then he made some other shoppers grateful that theirs were grown (I know because they told me so) as he kept trying to launch himself out of the cart headfirst and screaming in outrage when I put him back in the seat.

When we got home I left him strapped in the car while I unloaded the groceries because short of locking the deadbolt behind me every time, there isn't a good way to keep him in the house while I'm outside. He let the whole neighborhood know what he thought about the situation. I can only wonder what some of our new neighbors think of us. I imagine most of them understand as probably nine out of ten of them have kids still at home but still....

While I put away groceries, he took them back out for me, then grabbed a bottle of hot sauce from the fridge and took a swig of that. Then for some reason, he wanted a drink (I couldn't help but laugh at that!) Then he spent a good five minutes grunting and straining trying to pick up the watermelon. Then he decided that rolling it down the stairs looked just as fun. I managed to get there in time to prevent him from sending the watermelon to a messy meeting with my carpet.

Then my oven told me it was preheated, I opened it, put the squash in the oven, closed the door, turned around and saw my son standing on the counter drinking out of the glass coffee pot.

The last few days he has discovered he can move the dining room chairs to reach stuff on the counters. Apparently today he discovered he can pull all the drawers out and climb them and sit and stand on the counters. This has the added bonus of allowing him to reach the stuff in the upper cabinets. Again I'm so thankful he didn't hurt himself, that I never got around to making my coffee this morning, that he wasn't scalded, that he didn't climb up on the counters where the knife block is, that he didn't bang the coffee pot on the sink that he feet were in and cut himself, that he didn't fish the butcher knife out of the sink, that he didn't fall and bust his head open or break his neck.

I am at a loss for how to deal with this. Telling him "NO!" takes months to sink in for any particular undesirable activity. I was in the same room and had my back turned for maybe 20 seconds. I can't never take my eyes off him. He can't stay locked up in his crib all day. The kitchen is as baby-proofed as it can possibly get and there is no way to gate it to keep him out of it completely. There are some things that need to be on the counter. I'm so frustrated right now and I'm hoping once he settles in he will calm down a bit. In the mean time, I'm scared to take my eyes off him. I think it's amazing the survival rate for boys is as high as it is.

I also think I'll take that straight jacket now dad!