And so the Baby Gate Era Begins

Here’s Ben, sitting there all cute and clean after bath time. He looks innocent enough, doesn’t he? Ah, but don’ be fooled…the wheels are turning behind those eyes. He is already calculating how he could pull himself up and attempt a crib escape. That hasn’t happened yet…but the little guy is getting bolder and more daring with his moves. And so it was decreed: Let there be baby gates! So mommy brought forth gates, and she surveyed her work and decided it was good.

Unfortunately, the cats disagreed.

When it was decided that Ben could no longer be stopped (you could only hope to contain him), Mom went out and purchased some lovely metal gates to help keep the little man from crawling out of our living room/dining room. They look great, and at 3 feet tall, will be more than enough to keep Ben from wandering for a long time. The problem is, we have lazy cats. At first I thought they were just dumb, but it is truly laziness. They don’t want to jump the gates to get from one part of the house to the other (and I know they can, because I have seen them jump onto higher pieces of furniture). We have even left the gates unlatched, and shown the cats how to push through. They have even done it once or twice, but have now resorted to lying in front of the gates and crying until either Mommy or Daddy is annoyed enough to go let them through. I think they make more of a fuss about the gates than Ben does. Oh well…maybe they will learn to jump them (Prince, the 20 lb. cat, could definitely use the exercise).

Anyway, Ben has pretty much perfected the army crawl on the wood floor, and can even switch over to a conventional crawl on carpet. He has now decided its time to stand on his own, and will suddenly let go of whatever he is using to balance himself and give it a try. This is usually followed by some severe wobbling and a thud, but he is getting closer, and he is fearless. He especially likes to stand on the couch and reach for our blinds over the windows. Loves it! So glad all those toys are sitting there on the floor while he is crying to play with our window fixtures!

Thats all I have right now. We are still slowly easing back into our post-Christmas schedules around here, but hopefully I will have more photos next week. There wasn’t any real reason behind this week’s photo other than it is one of our recent favorites. Oh yeah, there was a football game played last Saturday night…but we still aren’t talking about that around here. (Maybe Daddy will be ready to discuss it in time…but right now it is still too soon, the pain too fresh.)

So, everyone stay safe and happy. We’ll talk to you again next week!