Week of April 8th, 2002
Each morning at 6 a.m. Owen retraces his travels around the apartment, looking for little things that have appeared on the rug since his last trip through. His pincer grip is well developed and he uses it on things we'd rather he didn't (cat fur, specks of litter, cast off cat claws, tiny bits of paper, weird little bits of whatever that appear between vacuuming sessions). All the time, he's smiling, thrilled to be getting around on his own. Often he'll have a toy stuffed in his mouth, since it's hard to crawl and carry anything in your hand. If there's no toy, sometimes he'll just have his tongue hanging out in a goofy way.
He's constantly trying to manuever to the parts of the apartment that are off-limits. What we can't section off or remove, we watch. Each time he gets close, we pick him up and reposition him. Sometimes this works, most of the time it's just good exercise for all of us. We're trying to mitigate the worst hazards, but our apartment is overfull, and we've lived a childless life for a long time. We feel like bodyguards, responsible for his personal safety as he blithely moves through the world like Mr. Magoo...fortunately we have some areas set aside for his destructive urges. He loves pulling his board books off the bookshelf, and we have some strategic play areas waiting for him. But it's hard to compete with the litterbox and cat food.
A new feature with his exploration is his anxiety. He looks behind him now, reassuring himself that we're still there. If he crawls off toward another room, he'll reconsider at the threshold if it looks like we're not following. If we leave him with his toys and run quickly to another room (say, the bathroom) he follows us like a little puppydog. It's touching and alien and wonderful and scary to be needed so much. The downside is that he has trouble letting go. It's been harder for him to go to sleep lately, and in the middle of the night, he wants to be with us or exploring the world.
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