Getting in Trouble

Now that Liam is mobile, Liam has figured out a few things.

How to chase the cats, how to try and use EVERYTHING to try and stand, that a sharp "NO" when reaching for something means he needs to wait to try again later. (*sigh*)

And best of all, he had learned how to get stuck.

Stuck standing up and not knowing how to get down.... This causes a loud cry from him of purest anguish. It is enough to chill your bones and make you run into his room like your butt is on fire only to find him standing in the corner of his crib.

Stuck on the floor. He crawls over toys like they are not there, he crawls over clothes, cats, shoes.... but the one thing that foils him for sure is anything that is stuck in place and will not move.

You see, as Liam crawls, he has not learned to lift his knees yet. He shuffles them along, and while this is nice and speedy for the most part, it means things like the bar on his highchair base get in the way.

He works very hard at trying to get unstuck, but it takes him a while.

The first time he got stuck, I waited. I watched him try to figure it out. He did not cry, he did not fuss, he did not get mad. He just kept trying. Sometimes he tried the same thing over and over again, as if by sheer force of will he would move away from this spot. At times he laid down over the bar and sucked his thumb. It took him 10 minutes to get over the bar.

And then he met the next obstacle. The sliding glass door.

I decided that it would do little good to rescue him from every situation. He would never learn that way.

Liam likes to figure stuff out. He has a way of reaching for things with precision and sort of skipped that random infant hand flailing stage where he just HAPPENS to hit the toy. I think that one lasted about 30 minutes, and then he knew that things happened and he wouldn't reach until he thought about it and how to do it.

He is the same way with getting in trouble. He picks his target and heads for it with a goal in mind and a plan for once he gets there.

Now it is up to me and Daddy to intercept him before he reaches the scarier aspects of mobility. I have already winced at head thunks, dived forward to make his head land on my hand and not the hardwood floors, watched him cry for a little bump and shake off a bump that seemed to shake the whole house. I have a feeling we will be seeing more bruises and bumps in the near future.

Look out world, Here comes Liam!