Well it’s official: The entire Goldstein-Whitworth family is now on suicide watch. And I couldn’t be happier. The watch has nothing to do with depression, this one is all about Simon’s burgeoning mobility.
Today he pulled up many times. How many I can’t say, because I honestly lost count. Given that between October and today Simon has pulled up once every 2-6 weeks, it’s safe to say that he pulled up more today than he has in his life combined. He pulled up in the living room at least 3 times. He pulled up in the bathroom at least once, leaving behind lots of toiletries on the floor as evidence. He pulled up at least 6-8 times in his bath tonight, then had fun “falling” down and making a huge splash. And then he pulled up while drying off après bath on our bed.
But wait, there’s more. For at least five seconds or so, he stood unassisted in the bath. He pulled up, was holding his shampoo bottle or a bath toy, and was so absorbed in it that I think he forgot what he was doing and let go of the side of the bathtub. We could hardly believe our eyes.
Today Simon also experimented with leaning and stair climbing. The leaning game features Simon throwing toys into the tub, then leaning over as far as he can to pick them up. First he eased one foot off of the floor. Then he started to ease off the other, leaning over the edge and trying to balance like a see-saw over the side. It worked once or twice, but the third time he went tumbling over. I held on enough to keep him from hitting full-force on the porcelain, but not so much that he didn’t realize he was falling and feel alarmed. I have no idea if this was the right thing to do or an appropriate teaching exercise; I can’t find “what to do when you see your kids plummeting to their likely harm and/or demise” in any of my child rearing books.
Finally, for a kid who can’t walk, he sure has ideas about how he’d like to climb stairs. I used to “walk” him up the stairs by having him lift up one foot on the next step, then pull the second foot to meet it. Given how steep our back stairs are and how short his legs are, this seemed quite logical. Simon has decided that that’s too babyish, though, and now insists on putting his right foot on the first step and then dragging his left foot up to the step above that one. Needless to say, this technique requires much “help” from me.
So that’s why Simon is on suicide watch. I’m adding myself to the list because about three weeks ago I slipped on a toy, smacked a toe into our ottoman, and am now pretty sure I broke it. Then today I stepped on a jagged piece of plastic that Simon threw on the floor and cut the bottom of my foot. Hardly lethal, I know, I’m afraid I’m going to be pretty gimpy if this keeps up. And Matt is on the list because while he hasn’t tripped over anything yet, I see the guy nearly trip on the ground and down the stairs when nothing is in his way all the time. It’s just a matter of time…