The Other Side

Steve was home this afternoon with the boys...alone. I had a doctor's appointment and he came home to "babysit." I hate that word when they are HIS kids, also, but that's essentially what it is...especially considering what I witnessed upon my arrival home. Nathanial, Ethan, and Noah were taking naps when I left, but starting to wake up.

I came back home two hours later, when what to my wondering eye does appear, but Steve's "solution" to keeping the boys in the living room. See, they had not yet discovered that they could get out on either side of the couch until last week. When they found out there was freedom to be had on the Other Side, they went after it. All week, I have discovered babies following me...everywhere. So, yes, that means, fantastic, I now have FOUR visitors when I need to, ahem, you know. One was bad enough, but I knew this was coming.

Back to yet another one of Steve's genius ideas to his version of "baby proofing." He has their toy basket blocking entry to The Other Side between the bookcase and the couch. Between the couch and the fireplace, he has placed an excersaucer. Seems brilliant, right?? Wrong. THIS is what happens when you block it with an excersaucer....

You are seeing correctly....that is Nathanial stuck in the excersaucer. He seems happy here, but trust me, not so much three seconds before.

So if you're wondering....excersaucers do not make great baby gates. Trust me....we've tried.

Maybe not Sesame Street Blocks

Well, the fireplace idea seemed brilliant....until you account for the fact that it's bright, colorful, and right at baby-level. Seems Nathanial, Ethan, and Noah have taken a liking to it and have decided that their intent everyday is to get it down as fast as possible. Daddy says, no problem...I'll just add more duct tape! (Yes, that's duct tape on the back of it.) I'm thinking we're going to end up needing to buy stock in the duct tape company by the time they are 3! Nathanial appears to be missing from the photo, but that's only because I couldn't get what he was doing into the picture. He also has three or four of the little squares that he is intently playing with in the bottom left of the picture. These guys are sure teaching us a new thing every day!!

Pulling Up

Now Ethan and Nathanial have both decided they love to pull up on things. Lovely, just lovely. They also choose the most unsafe things to pull up on. For instance, the brick fireplace. Great! Or, the glass shelves in the entertainment center. Wonderful! So now I have a very stylin' Sesame Street foam block border around my fireplace. Oh, how I love that! I guess it's better than Steve's idea....a comforter! What?!?! I think not. This is softer anyway. But, when I was first putting it on there, all activity stopped and I turned around to see three very curious little people crawling over and staring at me. Seems all the bright colors and Sesame Street characters is an attention-getter. I am in the process of trying to order a fireplace cover, but Steve is bucking it (they are expensive, I'll give him that). He seems to think this Sesame Street thing is going to work perfectly. So far it is, but we'll see how long that lasts!

Babies, Babies Everywhere!!!

All three are on the move! They are everywhere! I cannot believe how quickly they can realize that they are mobile and just up and take off. Ethan is the worst because he has completely mastered crawling. Nathanial does a couple of "real" crawl steps, then whips himself forward to grab whatever it is that he isn't supposed to have. Noah still does a crawl, army crawl, scoot combo. But do they ever move quick! And the stuff they find!! I am vacuuming three times a day and they still find stuff to eat! They get soooo mad when you move them, also. We lovely refer to Nathanial as "Larry" (as in Larry the Cable Guy) because he is so attracted to our cable cord. I have been a little slow on the baby proofing thing and he is so enamored with that thing, I am constantly pulling him away. To be honest, Aidan was so easy that we didn't have to do a lot of baby proofing. A few plugs in outlets and we were good to go. Not so much with these guys. I have been searching for cord covers (which I found online), more outlet covers (what happens to all those things???), baby gates (don't really care for them to discover the house has more than one room that they can adventure to yet), and all sorts of fun stuff. Man alive, I never knew they would get into so much!!