And Now I'll Really Be Outnumbered

Sam and Anna have a new favorite activity that is oh-so-cute: they love to race each other down our hall. Each one moves as fast as possible to get ahead, and then turns and giggles at their sibling, teasing them, seeing how close behind they are. It is frickin' adorable, and yes, I do have a few videos of it.

This also means I have two crawlers.

And boy, oh, boy do things change when you're outnumbered by crawlers. When Sam started crawling, Anna was a pretty happy independent player. I could plop her down in front of a interesting toy and go fetch my adventurous son away from whatever trouble he was about to get into. Now things are much more interesting. We divide and conquer as much as possible- "Honey- grab Sam- he's about to tip the humidifier!" or "Watch Anna so I can grab Sam before he shuts the door on his fingers!" and so on.

While Anna is getting more adventurous, Sam is fearless. Over my winter break, he learned how to climb a few stairs, pull up on everything, open drawers and cabinets, shut open doors, etc. and don't forget he discovered a way to climb out of an exersaucer right before the holidays, too. If he's not doing one of those things, he's headed for a cord that we can't hide or eliminate or the fireplace doors that I can't figure out a way to babyproof. He's always into something, and I can't baby proof everything. Anna just delights in following her brother in his explorations... or sometimes veering off in a different direction on her own adventure (usually precipitated by where our dog is at that moment). They are really keeping us on our toes now- but at least we aren't usually outnumbered for more than an hour or two at a time.

However, this week will be my third solo parenting expedition since Sam and Anna were born. My husband leaves Wednesday and returns late Saturday. Gone are the days when I could leave a baby laying on the floor and confidently change the other in one swift motion with my back turned, knowing the floor baby would be just fine. Olympic level diaper changing also happens now, which means it can take up to 10 minutes sometimes to get the darn thing on correctly on a wiggly baby who wants nothing to do with laying still and wants everything to do with crawling or climbing and attempts to do one of those things every second during a diaper/clothing change.

I know I can do it all by myself because I have before, but I have a new layer of worry that didn't exist before this time. I'm more worried than ever that we won't all make it to Daddy's return unscathed. Will Sam shut his finger in the drawers, will Anna get trampled by a 60 lb dog, will a baby fall several feet from some piece of furniture? I have nightmares that Sam will soon figure out how to climb out of his crib. That day is coming- and what on earth do I do when that time is here? This is also the first trip where no help is coming for even part of the time. It is the first time I have to get all 3 of us ready and out the door by 7 am, in the winter to boot and for several days in a row. (I'm only a little sheepish to share that I chickened out last time, and took two personal days off of work so I wouldn't have to do that by myself.)

I can't wait to type the post explaining how it went much better than I thought and that not only did we survive, but we succeeded. That post will also mean that my latest solo parenting experience will be over.

Then I get a week break before being outnumbered again. The end of January is looking pretty attractive right now...