A Serious Post about a Serious Thing

One month ago today, I experienced something that could have changed my life—and the lives of each member of my family—forever, and not for the better. Some of you have heard the story, and some haven't, but in the interest of providing a teaching moment, I'll share it here.

The short version: In one moment, I was cooking dinner at the stove; LG was dancing in the hallway to the left of the kitchen; and G2 was playing on the kitchen floor by the refrigerator, about 6 feet behind me. In the next moment, the cabinet 2 feet to my right—containing our stoneware and glassware—came crashing to the floor. The cabinet glanced off the countertop, pivoted on its way down, scraped down the side of my right calf and ankle in the split second that I turned toward the initial noise, and landed on the floor about 2 feet from my son, expelling broken glass and cracked dishes around him.

Now, because it's been a month, and you haven't heard any horrifying news about my family, you can safely and rightly assume that everyone is fine. I suffered only minor physical injuries, and short of a few minutes of crying from both children—largely as a response to the noise caused by the incident and my adrenaline-fueled scream-leap-and-scoop maneuver to get G2 away from the shards that surrounded him—the kids are fine, too.

The mental toll, however, is another matter entirely. Four weeks later, I can talk about it, even laugh it off, to some extent. But in the hours and days that followed, I was a wreck. "What if..." scenarios filled my dreams while I slept and fueled panic attacks when I was awake. I won't bore you with the myriad iterations of damage, injury or worse that I've conjured since then. Those of you with children can fill in the blanks yourselves; those of you without, I'm sure can at least consider what I might have lost in the fraction of a second it took for that cabinet to hit the floor.

My father, in an effort to put to words that which I could not in the aftermath of the incident, wrote the following:

We live in a precarious world. Never knowing when or if we may fall victim to some unforeseen calamity that could forever change our lives. Whether caught up in a sudden natural disaster or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time when danger strikes by human hand, the result is the same, a personal universe destroyed or irreparably harmed. These thoughts are far from our minds as we live out our daily lives busily scurrying to and fro. We only rarely experience or expect impending doom to exact its punishing effects upon ourselves or our psyche. But ready or not we must know that life is a tenuous thing, filled with uncertainty and possibilities for which we are unprepared. 

It is our reasoned expectation that we are safest in our own home, surrounded by the familiar and ensconced in the pleasing realm of family life. Then we are suddenly caught unawares, and for a time that feeling of security is shattered. This too will pass. The lingering effect of such an incident, however chilling, can serve to remind us of who and what we are and from whence we came as well as how fragile life can be.  

Thanks, Dad. Couldn't have put it better myself.

This incident has taught me two very important truths: one sort-of philosophical, the other more practical.

Be grateful for what you have. I can't believe I'm quoting Joni Mitchell, but "Don't it always seem to go/That you don't know what you've got/Till it's gone." Life is fast. Life is ephemeral. Everything can change in an instant. Don't take that for granted.

Never assume the person who installed your cabinetry knew what they were doing. The cabinet that fell was the largest single unit in my kitchen, and it's been there, holding those dishes, for the seven years we've lived in this house, and holding who-knows-what for who-knows-how-long before we moved in. It was held up by only two screws, one of which was drilled straight into drywall, not a stud. If you take nothing else from this story take this: It's worth your time to quickly double-check anything of moderate weight that is affixed to a wall in your home. It would not have occurred to me to do such a thing before, but it certainly will now.

I realize this post is not entertaining or replete with stories about the wacky things my kids get up to, but it is important. If nothing else, it's been a helpful exercise for me in getting over the what-might-have-been and getting back to the now.

Thanks for reading. Here are cute pictures of my kids.

Come on, baby! Do the Locomotion!

I'll be honest, for a time we were slightly concerned that G2 was falling behind in his physical development. Gross motor skills, like sitting up on his own, pulling to stand, crawling or cruising? These did not come easily or early. As ever, our only other point of reference is his sister, and by 10.5 months, she was taking her first steps. At 10.5 months, he could barely get himself into a seated position on his own.

Let's be clear. He's healthy, happy, inquisitive, and he could pick up a speck of lint off the floor between two fingers faster than you could say, "STOP! DON'T EAT THAT!" But getting from place to place? Not his strong suit.

Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for. Because this kid is trucking and getting into everything.

There was something comforting about sitting him on the floor in the middle of the room and knowing you could get a glass of water and he'd be where you left him when you got back. No longer!

Though he's still not walking on his own, he does have numerous ways of getting around that don't involve begging to be picked up. As I remarked on Facebook a few weeks ago, it's not always elegant.

There's the ever popular drop-to-your-butt-then-zombie-crawl-across-the-floor maneuver.


Or, recently discovered at our hotel in DC, the-round-and-round-we-go.

This went on for some time.

If his tunnel is in play, you can count on the ever-popular recede-into-the-distance gambit.

It helps if he can chase his sister.

Lately, however, it's cruising. Everywhere. All the time. Initially this was limiting for him, because he would only cruise around or along objects. Put him next to the TV console, and he'll move back and forth. Put him next to the refrigerator, and he'll make his way along the cabinets, across the dishwasher, pass the corner cabinet, stop at the stove to turn on a burner, finish at the trashcan, then reverse.

That lasted about three days, and now he drops to the ground, army crawls to the dog bowls, tips them over, then uses the wall to stand back up before he moves into the hallway or living room. Gaps used to  stop him, then he realized that gaps weren't gaps, just an opportunity to find a wall and take the long way around.

Except for spilling the dog's water, that's all sort of charming.

A month ago, I didn't think he'd ever get to the point he's at now. A month from now, he'll be walking freely, and I'll just want him to sit down for a dang minute. And as I dive to insert myself between his finger and the electrical outlet he's managed to yank the cover off of, I'll think about how great a video of our adventures would look if I sped it up by 800% and set it to a Yakety Sax knockoff.

G2's Favorite Things (Part 1)

Mama here. As we get closer to G2's first birthday, he's becoming a very funny little dude with very distinct (and often baffling) preferences. Here in no particular order are some of things G2 likes (and pictures I like).

Favorite Animal
I'm going to have to go with lion on this one. This was one of the first animal noises he made (more on that in a later post), and every time we bring out the toy bin, he will dig out this rather mangy looking lion toy we picked up in a dollar bin somewhere. He desperately wanted to pet the one that was lounging near the glass at the zoo. 

Hey. Hey. Hey. Lion. Hey. Lion. Lion. Lion. Hey.

Favorite Song

It's a sad truth that I sing fewer kiddie songs to G2 than I did to LG. When LG was little, I was constantly singing about spiders and lambs and doggies in the window. (By the way, totally conflicted about that song.  It's short and punctuated with the kind of doggie noises that speak to discerning baby sensibilities. Though the whole puppy mill angle makes me a little uneasy.  Don't even get me started on "The Cat Came Back.") G2's world is filled with no less music, it just happens to be dominated by less Wee Sing and Mama-led-melodies and more by Spotify, Frozen and Laurie Berkner.

There are still a few songs that can stop a meltdown in its tracks. When he spent some time in the hospital, "5 Little Monkeys" kept him calm.  Better yet, he acts out the whole song. He bounces when the monkeys bounce, he's got the finger-waggling of the disapproving monkey doctor  down (A monkey doctor or a doctor for monkeys? You decide.) and shakes his head furiously and cracks up when the well meaning physician tries to help some concussed primates.

However, the current favorite is "The Wheels on the Bus." This is a fine choice for an almost one year old. Classic. Hand motions. Public transportation. Wonderful. Unfortunately, this has ruined the song for me. Seriously. Why was this made? And yes, that is Roger Daltrey as the dragon bus driver. We happened upon this before G2 was born, and when LG was sick before he was born we watched that. A lot.

Though nothing gets him grooving like the ABCs. 

Favorite Pet
This is a tie. He loves Lola. I think. If the amount of food he tosses her while he's eating is any indication, he loves her a lot. Though, typically, when you love an animal you don't try to grab fistfuls of fur, or poke your fingers in her eye, or flick her paws. I choose to blame this behavior on a lack of fine motor skills. Lola, who is very old at this point and is generally not fond of wee people, is very patient and has yet to eat him. Win.

Our long-suffering dog.  We don't have any pictures of G2 and Lola interacting. We're usually on heightened alert when they get close to each other so photos take a backseat to making sure he doesn't get eaten.

And there's the fish. I like having fish, though as Matt has mentioned in the past, he's indifferent to our fish wards. We recently restarted our tank with six very pretty guppies. LG seems to to take after her father in her disregard for the fish. G2, however, loves the fish. Mainly, he likes to try to poke his fingers through the hood of the tank and yell nonsense at them. The fish, who are thankfully behind some very thick glass and are always expecting to get fed, are very patient and have yet to eat him. Win.

He's only knocked the hood off once.  Poor fish.

Favorite Toy

He likes just about any toy that blinks and makes music. (I like the ones with volume control. This is not a post about what I like, but I thought that was important to note.) There's the singing guitar, the singing turtle storybook, the various singing phones, and his (singing) office.

You mean your office doesn't also contain a piano?

He equally likes anything with wheels- motorcycles, trucks, cars, shopping carts, baby carriages. He particularly likes a set of cars he has that move via a spinning ball at the center. He does spend some time moving these various vehicles back and forth, however, his favorite pastime is flipping them over spinning the wheels.

By far, the cutest favorite toy he has is his dolly. He got the doll from Santa in his stocking for Christmas. I started putting it in his crib without really thinking about it. I wanted LG to have a lovey when she was a baby to help her sleep, but she never took to the stuffed animals until she was older (and now she sleeps with a rotating entourage of about 4 stuffed animals). G2 didn't seem to care one way or another about the dolly until I started to notice a trend.

He holds her hand while he sleeps. Have you ever seen anything so amazingly cute in your entire life?

NO, YOU HAVEN'T.

Favorite Food

Blueberries. Hands down. Kid would eat his weight in blueberries if we would let him.

There are no blueberries on his tray you say? He ate them all. Come on, it's a cute picture.  Work with me.

Favorite Leisure Activity

It's hard to choose a leisure activity for a little person who sleeps about 15 hours a day. But when G2 wants to relax after a hard day of pseudo-crawling (more on that later), putting peanut butter in his sister's hair (true story), and shouting at fish, he engages in some serious swinging.

His partner in crime.

Unfortunately the buckle on the swing got stuck and I had to cut him out of it. It was all very dramatic; bonus, now he can fling himself out of at will.

With spring on its way (in theory), there will be much swinging!

Ah, the feeling of the wind through his hairs.

So much joy. 

More G2-approved stuff later this week!

Childproofing 2: The Quickening

The most significant childproofing I've ever done was in the service of preventing our dog from eating all the snacks in a kitchen drawer, and that amounted to a handful of drawer locks. After that, putting a couple of outlet plugs in place once LG was mobile was no big deal. And honestly, that was almost unnecessary. I don't think she ever looked twice at an outlet.

But G2... oy. That boy. In the spirit of most proper sequels, this round of childproofing is bigger, wilder, and more expensive. The kid can't even walk on his own and he's gotten into more trouble in three weeks than LG has in more than three years. Suffice to say, I'm not looking forward to the climbing phase.

To give you a sense of what we're up against, Hollie recently had to employ rockclimbing equipment to prevent pinched fingers.

And it's only a matter of time before he can reach and figure out how to unclasp the carabiners.

He was opening the lockers with one hand and slamming the door onto his other hand. As yet, he hasn't learned this isn't a good thing. Yes, we want to stop him from hurting himself. But we also want to prevent this.

Seriously. LG didn't develop the "let's empty the container of all of the things" impulse until 15-18 months.

Sure, it's messy, but it also leads to another cause of injury: slipping on floor books. For the record, children and parents are equally susceptible to slipping on floor books. We are not a graceful people.

Back in the kitchen, there are a host of ways to get in trouble. I left G2 with his sister for about 30 seconds the other day, and rushed back into the room when I heard the telltale click-click-click of the stove knobs firing up a burner. I find LG on the other side of the room and G2 smirking to himself while grasping the oven door handle like a chin up bar, left front burner turned to medium-low. There's a reason ovens and stoves have the knobs on the top console now, and $10 says it isn't because it's more convenient for the cook.

And the cabinets...

The ever-popular "Let me at the household chemicals" ploy.

For the moment, the door latches have stymied him. But he's a problem solver. It's like the raptors testing the fence in Jurassic Park; one of these days, he'll find the weak spot.

Which brings me full circle to the drawer I originally secured because of the dog. For the record, it only took Lola about a week to figure out how to open the drawer after I put the latches on. Something tells me if he was taller I wouldn't have that long.

"There are cookies in here. I know it!"

Year 2 in Review: The Pictures

The 2nd Annual Solving for G Year in Review focuses less on how different LG looks, and more on the ways in which she has developed. At 12 months, she could stand, take a few steps unassisted, pass a baby doll several dozen yards, and say a small pile of words (most of which were animal noises). Now, she runs practically everywhere she goes, has a vertical leap of an inch or two, and her vocabulary has increased beyond my ability to count accurately (several hundred words at least, a few of which are still animal noises, and some of which are Muppets).

Without further ado, here's the 2nd Year in Review, with commentary as necessary. As with last year, each of these photos was taken on or near the 12th of each month.

September 12, 2011

Here's where we left off last year, the morning of her 1st birthday in Ocean City. As happy as my daughter is most of the time, this pensive look is pretty typical, even a year later. You can always see the wheels turning, like she is going to figure out whatever is in front of her.

October 14, 2011

Favorite pastime at 13 months: piling rocks on things. Sometimes benches, sometimes the rear bumper of the car. One day I pulled into the driveway after running a bunch of errands and when I went to open the rear hatch of the Cruiser, I realized there were three rocks on the bumper. This is either a testament to the stickiness of the rocks in my driveway, or the smoothness and stability of my driving.

November 14, 2011

At 14 months, she didn't like couscous. She still doesn't, although I've never been able to figure out why. It's so good! However, she had discovered how to look at me with eyes that said, "Seriously Dad. Not gonna eat this couscous."

December 16, 2011

It feels like she's been holding markers, brushes and pencils her entire life, but maybe it's just me. She will grab any writing implement and scribble on any available surface. You may remember how that turned out with paint around this time in December.

January 12, 2012

It's also kind of amazing how many places she's found to hide in our small house. Behind the rocking chair in the living room was one of the first.

February 12, 2012

On her second trip to the Philadelphia Zoo, LG got up close and personal with a baby orangutan. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was awesome, and she still talks about the orangutan. Side note: How awesome is that she knows how to say "orangutan"? She also know what an aye-aye is. Just sayin'.

March 11, 2012

We bought this sand and water table before LG was born. Cuz we're those people, and it was on sale. I don't remember if this was the first day we had it out, but she liked it from Day 1.

April 8, 2012

On Easter this year, we could've hid just three eggs over and over again. She was primarily interested in breaking the plastic eggs open before dumping them in the basket.

May 14, 2012

By 20 months, we definitely had her helping in the kitchen, although I can't remember what the heck she's eating here. Sweet potato? Squash? Tomato sauce? She's pleased with herself, whatever it is.

June 13, 2012

In Hollie's ever-expanding attempt to make the most absurd kind of mess possible, she bought a can of Barbasol and some food coloring gel and let LG go to town. And there you go.

July 7, 2012

This was our first visit to the Please Touch Museum. It can be fun, but man it crowds up fast. This was in the blessed first 15 minutes of relative quiet.

August 13, 2012

Another favorite game of the last year: running around the front yard like a crazy person, making the neighbors look at us funny. Specifically, she says she is "a lion in the jungle," and "daddy is a dinosaur." Let it never be said she doesn't have a healthy sense of imagination.

And because the more things change, the more they stay the same, here's a shot of her on the beach this year, compared with the trip last year.

September 11, 2011 - September 12, 2012

It's been a year, but she still really wants that umbrella.

But for the honest-to-god, real-deal, Year-1-to-Year-2 comparison, here are shots from her birthday, 2011 and 2012.

September 12, 2011 - September 12, 2012

Oh man. Where did the baby fat go?

I Love a Little Dot

The nursery is really coming together now. Hollie's parents got us the mini-crib we wanted, and it's set up where we want it. The futon is staying, although we still need to find an appropriately colored sheet to match the room. One bookshelf remains in the room, just moved slightly, and it's already filled with some great books (Thanks, Jim and Stan) and other stuff (monkey clock, thanks to Alissa; piggy bank, thanks to Hollie's family; giant stuffed duck, thanks to Liz).


Curtains are up, as noted earlier, with blackout drapes behind to help block out light and unwanted noise from our constantly karaoke-ing neighbor. She sings in her house constantly, which wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that she seems to be miked. In her own house. At all hours of the day and night. There's nothing wrong with The Carpenters, but if wanted to hear Close to You at 11pm, I'd fire up the iPod and use some earbuds. It's seriously strange, folks.

When we looked at changing tables, we were shocked at the price of the stupid things. Hollie recently read a list of absolute essentials for bringing a baby home, which included only five things, none of which were a changing table. The author advocated changing the baby on any available surface, including, but not limited to, the bed and the kitchen table. Now I like to save money, and our house is small enough that we briefly considered the possibility of no changing table. Then I considered poop, and I realized I wanted it as far away from my bed and kitchen table as possible.

Solution? Cheap IKEA dresser for which I will construct a changing top. All the benefits of a changing table, and we get a functional piece of furniture at some point in the future. I'll post more about this when I'm building. IKEA hacks. Not just another blog, it's a way of life.

And yes, I'll do something about that modem and wireless router on the floor. One thing at a time, people. Incidentally, that vacant space above the dresser will soon be filled with PAX cabinets... that I bought more than a year ago. Nothing like a baby to make you get off your butt and get things done.

And finally, the part of the room of which I'm most proud (at least until those cabinets are up). After several weeks of using 50% off one item coupons at A.C. Moore, we finally bought enough Wall Pops colors to finish the crib corner. Green, in particular, was very hard to track down. But there it is! Bright, high-contrasty color! I used a mat cutter with a set of circular templates to get the dots cut cleanly (thanks to my parents for the idea and the use of the equipment).

It's actually a good bit brighter than it looks in pictures. For some reason, even with the camera flash turned on, the room just looks darker than it really is. I blame the blackout curtains.

You can really see how mini the mini-crib is, and that's exactly how we want it. We still may put up some star and moon lights on the green wall or ceiling. Not sure yet. In any case, it's coming along just fine.