He is also very good at climbing the stairs and, unfortunately, he LOVES it. Too bad he hasn't yet figured out how to get safely back down the steps. For those of you who haven't been to our house, we have a large wooden staircase right in the middle of our home. We did not realize that it was too wide for a standard baby gate until after he started climbing the steps, so I'm very anxious for the extra-wide gate we ordered to arrive.
In the meantime, I spend most of my day holding Charlie because every time I set him down he heads straight for the staircase and starts to climb. If any of you would like to try out a day in my shoes, just follow the rules below:
1) Find something (a sack of potatoes, for example) that weighs approximately 20 pounds.
2) Carry it around in one arm the entire day, doing pretty much everything one-handed (brushing teeth, cooking, cleaning up after meals, working on computer, etc). Ideally, your 20 pound object should interfere with whatever it is you are trying to do. If, for example, you attempt to undertake the daunting task of sending a quick email, you should bang your object on the keyboard the entire time you are attempting to type.
3) You are allowed to set your object down for two 1-hour intervals (nap time).
4) If you must set it down to free your hands quickly, you have 5 to 10 seconds - 15 seconds tops - before you need to pick it up again before it starts climbing the stairs.
5) If you need to set it down for a luxurious 5-10 minutes without picking it back up again, you will first have to safely barricade it somehow and then pay for those minutes by choosing a bookshelf, cupboard or drawer and completely emptying its contents.
6) If you decide you need a bathroom break, you must unroll and re-roll a large portion of the toilet paper while you go. Another option would be to dump out the bathroom trash can. Also, your 20 pound object should be leaning against your leg and pulling your pants down as you try to pull your pants back up.
7) As an extra touch, if you don't have a couple of older kids running around, you could invite some children in from the neighborhood and have them mess up as much of your house as they possibly can. And tell them to bring along their homework so you can help them with it. They should also be extremely hungry and want complex snacks while they are there. At least one of them needs to spill their snack and try to clean it up by spreading it around even further.
(Note: if you put down your 20-pounder while re-cleaning up the snack, have one of the kids repeatedly place it in the middle of whatever it is you are trying to clean).
Also, the older kids need to have at least 34 fights/arguments every hour.
Feel free to remind yourself that they are learning good conflict resolution skills for their future. Repeat this reminder as often as needed.
8) You can finally be done around 8:30 or 9:00. I'll exempt you from having to run upstairs to put the baby back to sleep again 3 times before you go to bed at midnight. I will also graciously exempt you from changing your chosen object's diaper while simultaneously rolling it around on the floor.
Unfortunately, I can't really recommend the above exercise as it could give the unrealistic impression that being a stay-at-home-mother is just extremely annoying and frustrating. But when that 20-pound object is an adorable, loveable baby, and when you can watch those older ones grow into children capable of demonstrating kindness, love and generosity (in between all the squabbles) everything I described above is totally worth it.
They are also great at helping me recognize the areas of my life that I need to work on. Like patience. And detachment from all those superficial distractions life offers (usually on a shiny, glowy screen...such as the one I'm using now. Yes, I see the irony. You don't have to rub it in. Sheesh!) And patience. And did I mention patience? Yeah, I've got a long way to go on that one.
Oh! I almost forgot. Here's a picture of Charlie at Halloween. He's Charlie Brown!
