Caroline is presently in what I call the Wile E Coyote stage of child development.
You know how the coyote can run past the edge of a cliff and keep going, but doesn’t fall until he notices he’s standing in mid-air, at which point gravity takes hold?
Well, Caroline is at the same point when it comes to standing. She’ll be standing in her playpen by means of holding onto the edge and get interested in some toy. She’ll reach down and pick it up. Now she’s gripping the playpen with one hand and examining the toy in the other. At some point invariably she’ll release her grip and start playing with the toy with two hands, oblivious to the fact that she’s standing. And suddenly she’ll blink and look down, realize what she’s doing…and promptly fall.
My guess is she’ll be walking within a month, at which point–with all the books on the shelves–we’re well and truly screwed.
PAD
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And don’t forget the general principle of house cleaning that goes along with that, whereby the parents begin clearing everything that can be grabbed, spilled or broken from the lower shelves and alcoves. You then work your way progressively upward as the toddler gets bigger and more aggressive. It all reaches a crisis point when the kid learns to climb. At that point, all bets are off.
Mind you, I’m saying this as a non-parent (the advantage of being a cool uncle is you swoop in, give them lots of present, fill them with sugar and swoop out again) but I’ve had enough younger bothers and sisters to remember the process quite well.
Shoot, i’m 25 and i still do that… 😉
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Nonsense. Wile E. Coyote only ever had to wait as long as it took for him to walk out to the road to look in the mailbox!
This is why I don’t have children. Between the time they can walk and the time they can marry I’d have sent them off somewhere. lol
Michael Norton
If you think it’s bad now, wait till you see what sort of insane schemes she comes up with to try and catch the cat. One of these days you’re going to walk into the room, see a big red X on the floor, with a bowl of cat food sitting in the middle of it, and a sign that says “Free Cat Food” sticking out of it. Look up and you’ll see a giant slide, with her standing at the top, wearing a pair of roller skates, goggles, and a giant rocket strapped to her back, with a lit match, just waiting for the cat to stop at the bowl and start eating.
I think the Davids will have to worry about the rocket powered stroller first before she goes into solo flights, but otherwise I love ObeeKris’ comment. Kudos Obee!
But seriously Peter, when she is old enough, remind Caroline that her Acme expenses will be coming out of her allowance. After all, Wile E. spent so much money with them, he HAD to try to catch the Road Runner. It was the only way he was ever gonna get a free meal, which was the only way he could afford to eat at that point.
After all, if you worked for Acme, you’d bankrupt the company if you processed even a tenth of Wile E.’s return for refund attempts!
Budgie’s Third Rule of having young children: There is no place on Earth that is high enough to be “out of the child’s reach”.
Email me for the other two.
My little girl, Caitlin, is 15 months old. All My Star Trek books, WERE (emphasis on past tense) all lined up on 4 shelves in numerical order. I have completely given up any attempt to try and replace them in anything resembling some sort of order, as she takes great pleasure in tearing them down and trying to use them as building blocks or teething rings. Several forlorn lone sheets and covers are now stacked in a very high place awaiting re-gluing / taping together.
The videos and DVD’s are no longer safe either as she has figured out how to open cupboard doors and spreads dozens of boxes about and then gets mightily upset that she can’t open the boxes on her own ….. so you have to open the box for her, she has a look inside then closes the box, gets mightily upset that she cannot re-open the box, so you have to open the box, she has a look inside, then closes the box, gets mightily upset, etc etc repeat process infinitum.
SOMEBODY HELP ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Children should be raised in a barrel and fed through the bunghole until they are 16, at which point you plug up the bunghole.”
Robert A Heinlein
THE ROLLING STONES
My 1 year old son Michael just started walking. It wouldn’t be so bad, except he thinks he should be the one reading my books, playing my bass guitar, etc. Like his brothers before him, he has a serious case of the “Grabs”. Honestly, I don’t think a liquid soap dispenser looks like a bottle, but apparently Michael does. I’m simultaneously enjoying every moment with him and counting down the days until he moves out;-)
When we had our first son, Thomas, I immediately put all my books in plastic bags, like I always have with my comics. My wife wondered why until one night Tommy got up, walked over to the bookcase, took off his diaper, and peed on my protected books. Ahh, parenthood.
dAN
Peter
Thanks for the laugh. The mental image that todays post produced for me is priceless. Almost makes me want to have kids. ALMOST 🙂
Regards:
WSJ3
You know, it was a bit different with my youngest niece. It seemed to take her the longest time to even try to walk or stand. Then suddenly, one day, she’s just running… and I mean Running, all over the place. I guess she suddenly attained the ‘Road Runner’ stage ^_^
An old adage (at least in my family. You spend the childs first year of life teaching them to walk and talk and the rest of their life telling them to sit down and be quiet 😀
two more years and she’ll have a large enough I.Q. to co-write Namor.
Cause remember children:
Some writers think they can draw. Many artists think they can write.
Jemas can’t do either.
Off topic: I had insomnia last night so I dug deep and read Hulk: Future Imperfect again.
Wow. That is still awesome 10+ years later. Thanks again Peter.
Shawn
On a side note I just came back from Barnes and Noble on 21 street and 5 avenue and picked up STNF Gods Above. Considering I finished my Sir Apropos Tong Lashing this book could not have been more welcome. I can’t wait for the next hardcover it is going to have a CDROM with all of the previous stories up to Being Human.
After these books come out and the Imzadi reprint in December what is next on the agenda PAD?
Regards:
WSJ3
My little 6 month old niece is nearing that stage now, too. She’s sitting up now. Scared the crap out of me when I saw her on her quilt on the floor the other day and realized she wasn’t laying on her back or stomach. She was sitting up on her butt, smiling to the world. Then she reaches over for her favorite Cookie Monster teething ring thing and smacks her head to the ground in the process.
I can only imagine how much fun the walking process will be…
Needless to say, she’s not going anywhere near Unca Augie’s room when she starts walking and grabbing random items to rip to shreds. 😉
-Augie
My kid had a “hate on” for my John Irving novels which were situated on the first rung of my bookshelf.
John Irving and John Irving novels alone were met with abuse, indignity and violence. He ignored the the other “i” “j” and “k” books which were at his reach.
It was odd.
Huh. And here I always thought baby-proofing a house meant making the house safe for the baby… not the other way ’round.
Given that we just moved into our house, and had to buy seven freakin’ bookcases to hold all our books… I’ll remember the bit about plastic bags around the books!
Ah, looking forward to the joys of parenthood… really!
I do want kids, I’m just glad we don’t have ’em yet.
Let’s see…
My daughter running down the street naked; we still haven’t figured out how she reached the door knob, much less unlocked it. The “unicorn” knot my son kept. (Take two steps. BAM. Fall into a end-table. Wait a couple of days, until the bump ALMOST goes away. Take two steps…)
We were convinced that we were the worst parents in the world. Now they’re both in college, with jobs, living on their own. Guess we didn’t do too bad after all. (Well, except for one of ’em reading PAD star trek books and the other read PAD comics. I guess no child’s perfect.)
My son took his first steps under similar circumstances….he didn’t even realize he was walking as his attention was on something else. He’d gotten up to about 6 steps when our daughter, then 4, saw that the daddy and I were both watching her brother instead of her. She took a deep breath, and blew at him from across the room. The boy fell over hard (coincidence most likely, but….)and didn’t walk again for 2 more months.
Let’s see…My daughter running down the street naked; we still haven’t figured out how she reached the door knob, much less unlocked it.
What else did you expect? She was 17 at the time.
PAD
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