A few days ago, Beckett decided to start crawling.
We were given almost no warning. One day, he was just sitting looking around, complete with green plastic bowls, scooting occasionally on his butt in a very limited radius if there was anything that he wanted to get his hands on. Then the next day, I turned my back for 30 seconds or so, and when I looked back, he had moved himself six feet across the room. Since then, he has become our little miniature human dust mop, a constant reminder of just how much I need to clean the floor.
Beckett’s new-found mobility has reminded me of just how much we have not baby-proofed the house. Most of the time, he gets on the floor and starts looking for the nearest electrical cord he can stick in his mouth. (Oh, right, he’s also working on getting his second tooth.) When Maggie was becoming mobile, we had a large fenced-in area that gave her plenty of room to roam around, but also kept her safe from the knives and choking hazards that we kept lying around.
With the second child, things are a little more… complicated. Maggie has more-or-less free range of the house. Our bedroom and David’s office are off limits, and my “office” is now in a large fenced-in area that allows me to roam but also keeps me safe from the puzzles and general toddler chaos that takes over the house on most days. Maggie is allowed to get out toys and crayons and whatnot during the day, and then has to put them away before dinner at night.
And then there’s Beckett. Maggie gets our her toys, and Beckett watches with rapt attention. Before he was mobile, we could make sure that Maggie’s toys were safely out of his reach. But now, what with the super-speedy army crawling/dust mopping, anything left on the floor is fair game to be chewed on. It’s a hard thing for me to remember, let alone the two-year-old wonder.
And so it starts. Before mobility, Beckett was more of a curiosity to Maggie. She could give him hugs and kisses; they could laugh at each other. But he never really posed a threat to her things. Now, though, the kid can move. He can get his hands and his gums on anything left unattended on the floor.
Let the rivalry commence.