My son will be four months old next week and watching him develop has made me realize how easy life is right now. That isn't to say raising an infant isn't without its challenges, but in the overall scheme of things, its pretty simple. Perhaps what makes this time the easiest is the fact that he can't really move on his own. He either lays on his stomach or on his back wherever my wife or I place him. Yes, he kicks and squirms, but he can't go wander over to either of our dogs and yank on their tails. He can't crawl over to any of our "not baby-proofed" objects and taste test them for authenticity. He also can't grab anything valuable and personally test the effects of gravity by launching that object through the air. I guess it is just starting to dawn on my wife and I how much preparation we need to start doing in order to get our house ready for an infant on the run. For me, it happened the other day as my wife and I were watching our son squirming on his stomach. His legs are ready for crawling, able to lift his whole but into the air and wiggle it back and forth, but his arms just need a little more time to gain strength. As we watched him squirm forward a tiny bit, I had two thoughts. The first was, "Wow, I can't believe he is on the verge of moving around our house, its amazing." The second was, "Oh crap, the easy days of non movement are over and now comes the infant house exploration phase." Trust me, I love the fact that our son has almost figured out how to crawl, I just know that our house isn't ready for him and that it will take a much more concerted effort to both keep floors cleaner and also absent of small objects that will undoubtedly end up in his mouth.
The two challenges we face, both keeping the house cleaner and ridding the lower areas of small and large movable objects will be no easy feat. The first problem arises in the fact that we have two dogs and a cat and even if we vacuum twice a week, there is still plenty of accumulated hair and dirt. We have come to the realization that we will most likely have to vacuum every day in order to keep the floors clean enough for him to explore freely. The second issue arises in that our house has a total of two closets, both on the second floor, and both containing our clothes and an assortment of other items that we have no where else to put. There is simply no storage and as such we will probably have to go through another consolidation phase in which we sort through everything thats out and about and figure out either a) where to put it or b) if we should throw it out. It may seem like a large challenge on first inspection, but we have already consolidated a number of times so one more time shouldn't be that bad. We have gotten very good at deciding if something is necessary or not and if it isn't, we easily either donate it or throw it out. But despite the added cleaning that will need to be done, the baby proofing of our house requiring us to crawl around and see things from our son's perspective, and the consolidating, I can't wait for our son to be able to crawl. I have loved this easy period, entertaining him while he is in one place, but while I don't want to rush him in any way, I am kind of ready for him to be crawling, to be rolling over (which he has done once already), and for everything else that comes. But I know that everything happens on his schedule not ours, and while I look forward to what is to come, I am also excited and content with every little forward step in development he makes.
Whether it is more coordination with his arms, hands, and fingers, or his desire to touch everything that moves, I love every second of it. He loves to explore faces with his hands. I put my face a few inches from his and his arms shoot up, his hands grab my nose and ears and his fingers trace over my face. Of course, I did make the mistake yesterday not to check his finger nails before I put my face next to his and sure enough he put his fingers on my cheeks, dug in, and pulled. While his fingers are strong, they are luckily not strong enough to draw blood yet. I just laughed however, for he doesn't know any better yet. Perhaps what I love most though is his fascination with anything and everything. Whenever he sees something for the first time, his eyes go wide and dart back and forth, studying whatever caught his attention and inevitably his hands reach out, not just to touch, but also to try and taste whatever object he sees, large or small. Yesterday I found out how much he loves waterfalls. We went to a small state park about ten minutes from our house (Southford Falls State Park) and were able to walk right next to the waterfall, all the way down its length. Every time I stopped to show him the waterfall, he just stared, entranced by the flowing water and cacophonous sound it made. It was almost like he wanted to jump in and see what it was like. So we stopped every few feet to see the waterfall from a different angle and when it leveled out, we squatted down so he could get a really close view of the running water. All that waterfall watching wore him out though for half way through our hike, he passed out like a rock. As I was moving from rock to rock on the trail, lightly jostling him in the process, he kept on sleeping. Even when I talked to him or grabbed his hands, there was no reaction, just sleep. I could go on, but suffice it to say that I love spending time with our son, showing him the world little bits at a time, and watching him grow, slowly but surely, into the crawling maniac I know he will become.
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