My Week With Baby

Baby is eleven months old now, just starting to walk, and getting into EVERYTHING. Case in point, my week with Baby:

Monday:
Baby digs in trash and finds a used pinto bean can. He cuts his finger on the top of can. Blood everywhere - on him, on me, all over the kitchen floor. I freak, contemplate the emergency room, but instead wrap his tiny finger in three band aids. Baby chews off all three. Blood spurts all over his toys, the living room carpet, and sofa. I rebandage. Baby chews if off. More blood. Older boy suggest putting a cone around his head like a dog. I briefly contemplate this, then bandage the finger again.

Tuesday:
I’m sitting at my computer, writing. I hear in the background “splash, splash, splash”. Uh oh. Where is Baby? He’s splashing in the toilet bowl, of course. I disinfect Baby, put him down to watch TV. He chews off bandage. More blood.

Wednesday:
I’m attempt to write again. Baby, meanwhile, crawls into the kitchen where he knocks over recycling a bin, grabs an empty wine bottle out of it and uses the wine bottle to smash a ballpoint pen on the kitchen floor. The pen shatters, little pieces of plastic and globs of blue ink flying everywhere. I just finish cleaning this up (and relocating the recycle bin outside) when I hear “splash, splash, PLOP” Oh. No. Baby is again at the toilet, this time dropping my cordless mouse into the water. Fab. I disinfect Baby and the mouse, then give a stern lecture to the other members of my family on lowering the lid and shutting the bathroom door when they’re done.

Thursday:
I give up on writing, instead taking Baby to the grocery store where everyone comments on how cute and well behaved his is. (Ha!) We get home, and I put him down on the front lawn while I bring the groceries into the house. He eats a handful of grass. I grab it out of his mouth. He eats an acorn. I grab it out of his mouth. He reaches for a snail, and luckily I get there just before he can sample his first escargot.

I decide to take Baby to my mom's house for a change of scenery. He makes a bee-line for her open dishwasher and takes all her clean silverware out, throwing it on the kitchen floor. While I'm rinsing them off and putting them away again, he wanders into the bathroom. (Where the toilet lid is down. Ha! One step ahead of you, pal!). As soon as I finish with the silverware, I go into the bathroom and find him… "cleaning" the tile floor with Grandma’s toilet brush. Ew. I disinfect him, put the brush up high, and clean the floor.

I take him home, set him in front of “The Wiggles”, and check my email for five minuets. (Just five, I swear!) And then I realized it’s quiet. Too quite. I look over at Baby. He has figured how to take his own diaper off… and has gone number two all over the living room carpet. All I can say is this is one time I’m thankful for the ugly brown color of our renter’s carpet.

I give Baby a bath, wash his clothes, shampoo the rug, then collapse on the sofa.
Where he chews off his bandage and bleeds all over my lap.


Friday:
While I’ve been writing this, Baby has thrown a pen, a rubber ball, and a pair of iPod ear buds into the toilet. As soon as I disinfect them all, I’m driving to Babies R Us and getting toilet seat locks. And more band aids.

And he looks so innocent...

~Trigger Happy Halliday