Baby-Proof

I've been thinking a lot about baby-proofing.  To proof?  Or not to proof?

Daphne now is officially crawling.  It happened slowly.  First she rocked back and forth on all fours for weeks.  Then she was army dragging herself across the living room.  We think she was able to actually crawl on all fours about a week and half ago, but within the last two days, she has improved immensely.  Great, right?  Sure.  But now I'm faced with a kid who can move!  That's a whole new phase for these new parents.  I've never before been so concerned with how recently I've swept the floor.

I think I've decided not to get another gate.  We have one leftover from when my former pup, Griffin, was having a difficult time living in an apartment.  Dogs, babies - a gate is a gate, right?  Our house isn't large, there are no stairs, so I don't anticipate needing to use it on a daily basis. If we do, it will be to block our girl from the kitchen.  There are only two of us, but man I can make a mess in there.  Matt calls me a "dervish" as in whirling dervish when I'm creating a meal.  I usually cook and he usually cleans up my dervish after dinner.   Teamwork.

I know I have a lot to learn and each new day will teach me a new lesson about how to handle a crawling babe.  For now, I just want to throw things away.  We have too much stuff.  Too much, too much, too much.  I just told Matt this morning that I'd like to purge every area of the house.  I have no idea where to start, but here's the list.

• Kitchen pantry 
• Tupperware cabinet 
• Cabinet under the sink
• Laundry room closet
• Office Book Shelves 
• The living room entertainment center/shelves
• Office closet 
• Daphne's closet 
• My closet  
• The T-Shirt Chest 
• Our bathroom linen closet 
• My nightstand 
• The garage

That's pretty much the whole house....

Just today, I removed the trash can in the office.  It just had paper and a plastic bag or two in it, but it took Daphne about ten seconds to get to it and do this:

We no longer have a trash can in the office. 

I am trying not think too much about it, but I can't help but realize this is the beginning of my trying to protect Daphne from doing herself harm.  It's easy enough to clear shelves and make sure she stays away from sockets.  But what about when her feelings get hurt or she makes choices that are not good ones.  What if she's mean to someone?  What if she doesn't value her own safety?  I'm not sure I'll be able to handle that.  I work in a high school for goodness sake.  I know what happens there.  I know what happens when parents feel like their kid is spiraling or when they have no idea what is going on.  I know plenty of confident, happy young people, but I also know pregnant students, students who are mean to their peers, students who are bullied, students who make poor choices about drugs and alcohol, students who are on serious medications for chemical imbalances, students who are insecure about who they are.  

As she learns to have her physical independence, Daphne is going through her first month of "stranger danger."  She certainly has no fear of climbing up on the entertainment center, but if I walk to the kitchen to fill my water glass, she loses her marbles.  We've purposely been giving her some supervised alone time to play with her toys and explore by herself.  This obviously involves making sure she doesn't cause herself physical harm, but it also involves giving her the space to feel confident even when she's not engaged with us.  

So it begins.  The high-wire dance of giving her enough freedom to make mistakes and to learn, but not so much distance that she feels abandoned or without support. 

My Absence, My Return

After much encouragement from some dear friends and family, my desire to write, plus my own nagging guilt, I am back.  I don't even know where to begin.  Do I pick up where I left off?  Do I just jump in to my life today?  If this is meant to be a scrapbook of my life, how do I skip the most important eight and a half months yet?  But gosh, how long would it take me to catch up?

First, here are my reasons for not writing.  One, I'm busier.  Babies are time consuming in case you were wondering.  Second, I still can't write down her birth story.  It was hard.  It was painful and real and primal and so darn personal.  I never intended to air all of the nitty gritty on this blog, but I did feel like I owed it to myself and to Daphne to write a few words about her entry into this world.  And I had such writer's fear (this was so much stronger than your hum drum writer's block), I just couldn't do it.  And since I couldn't talk about the biggest thing that had ever happened to me, how could I write about the next thing?  Or the next thing after that?  There was a giant hole in my life story.

So what did I do?  I foolishly let that birth story hole turn into an 8-month hole.  Well, first it was a month and I thought, "I should just do it.  Write the post, even if I don't post it."  Then it was two, and three and so on...  You get the idea.  And here we are eight months later and that post still has not been written.

I've decided to call it my white whale for now.  Maybe I'll triumph one day, but I don't think I should let it stop me here and now.  For the time being, I will jump into our lives as they are now and throw in some "Throw back" posts if they seem to make sense.

I will leave you with a few pictures of our little chicken.  These are not necessarily my favorite, or the best quality, but I do believe none of these exact pictures have been posted on facebook or emailed.  I just cannot believe how much she's changed.

 [May 31, 2012:  One day old]

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