Terrified

When I picked Oliver up from daycare, we spent some time in the entryway, on the rug petting our kitty. Eventually, Liesel sauntered off, and Oliver decided to scoot in his own direction, too: backwards.

I watched as the little inchworm repeatedly put his butt high in the air, then pushed himself straight back. This is the first time he's really travelled on his own.

Michael called us from Denver, where he's installing some software.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Watching our son push himself backwards across the floor. He's almost to the carpet."

After Michael commented that Oliver is supposed to wait to make these milestones until he is home, he pointed out that at least the carpet would slow him down. The sliding was probably all because he was on our slippery wood floor.

"Um, well," I said. "He just got into the magazines on the coffee table." The carpet was not, in fact, slowing him down. Here's a play-by-play:

So here we are, one scootch closer to the stage we're terrified of. A wise friend once told me, "if you thought your life changed when you had your baby, just you wait until he starts crawling. That's when your life changes." (Hi, Beth).

Micheal looked around the living room the other day, and said, "How do you think we should gate this off?"

"Gate what off?"

"The living room."

I laughed. We have an open floor plan. There is no way we can really gate off our living room, or most of our rooms, for that matter. Which means that we will have no more lamps, no laptops charging, no magazines, no DVDs or CDs neatly stacked, no fireplace running when Oliver is awake, no corningware in the lower cupboards, no WII remotes on the coffee table, no pantry door left open, no basement door left open, nothing smaller than a baseball lying around. No rest. No opportunity to sit on the couch and stay there. Very little chance of ever baking again (sorry, coworker friends), and perhaps cooking dinner is out of the question from now on. Our food will consist of snack packs of pudding and pouches of teddy grahams.

Along Oliver's solitary journey to the living room this afternoon, he stopped to admire a closet.

He's thinking, "Wow, closet, you are so amazing. Where have you been all my life? To think of the time I have wasted jumping in my exersaucer and turning the pages of books...when I could have been spending my time admiring your flat, white doors." If this is the way he feels about a white, closed closet, I can only fearfully imagine what he will think of our collection of outlets, candles, and glass vases, all ready for the grabbing, tipping, and breaking.

Just as we knew we would, Michael and I find ourselves from time to time pondering, "we really love the house we built, but why didn't we think of...." Insert: a wider, actually functional mud-room; a utility sink somewhere; a porch that could fit a swing. Today, I'm adding to that list. A room with padded walls.