The Rough and Tumble Life of Boys...

Yep, I'm a mother to a little boy. And boy do I know it! Sebastian is almost constantly bruised or scratched or marked up somehow. Poor kid. He's COMPLETELY fearless and wants to do everything right. now. He is cruising everywhere (walking around while holding onto furniture), pulling up on anything he can reach (and even some things he can't...), and relentlessly crawling all over the house. Over things, under things, through things. He is unstoppable.

Nothing gets in his way! He has learned to crawl over dogs, cushions on the floor, people, pretty much anything. He grabs the legs of table and chairs and pulls himself up. He uses his mouth to steady himself if just two hands aren't enough. He stands on his toes if the thing he's going for it too high. He leans his elbow on the table if he needs both hands to gnaw on a toy and doesn't want to sit down to do it.

If two pieces of furniture are too far apart for cruising, you'd think that would stop him. But no! He just holds onto Thing 1 (say, the couch) and steps toward Thing 2 (say, the coffeetable), reaching as far as his little arms will go. It's not close enough? No problem! He just launches himself at Thing 2, taking a step or two without holding onto anything, and he's there! Then he flashes his most proud grin and starts moving toward the next target.

Of course, all of this scares me to death. Not to mention the fact that now he has to be monitored every second he's awake lest he eat electrical cords or tumble down the stairs (must install baby gates tonight...), but he falls. A lot. I know, I know, falling is part of learning and bonking his head or stubbing his toe won't do any permanent damage. But it still freaks me out! We have hardwood floors, and sometimes he lunges for that second piece of furniture and misses, and BONK head meets floor. He's so fast that even if we're right next to him, we can't always catch him before he lands.

The funny thing is, he doesn't even seem to care most times. I mean, the smack as his head hits the floor SOUNDS like it would hurt, but he just kind of blinks and gets back up to try again. He rarely cries. Of course sometimes he does (like if he falls onto the edge of a toy, or scratches himself or something...), but most of the time, he's totally oblivious.

He IS pretty deliberate about everything he does, though, luckily. He goes up and down pretty slowly and we can generally tell which way he's trying to go. Ok, so maybe slowly isn't the word. Carefully definitely isn't. Let's just go with deliberately. My boy knows what he wants to do, even if that pesky coordination hasn't quite caught up with his mind yet. I swear he'd be running around the house asking for the car keys if he could just manage to walk on his own first...

That's just it, though. He's very persistent. Which is a good trait to have, I guess. Even if it does make our life that much more hectic in the process. Stay tuned...this kid is going places.