Cliffhanger (Or: Don’t Look Down, Ducky!)

Apparently the seventh month is the one where babies decide that the only thing they are interested in doing is pulling themselves up on things and falling down. Even as I write this, I am having to leap away from the computer at frequent intervals and rescue Adeia from some new peril. The couch, the bed, dining room chairs, the bookshelf (a note from Susan: This morning Adeia fell down so many times in succession that Kristin, who was downstairs, thought I was doing Tae Bo.) Now, before you go and call DCFS, we are doing our best to make sure that our daughter doesn’t injure herself. But she’s just so darn cute! You should see the way she smiles and giggles when she succeeds in pulling herself up on some new piece of furniture. How could we deprive her of such joy and accomplishment?

At the moment, she is only able to pull herself up to a standing position. That doesn’t alarm me – there’s only so far you can fall when you measure a whopping foot and some change. What concerns me is when I see her straining to pull herself up further. When I came home this afternoon, Susan had Addie gated into a hallway with some toys while she caught up on some cleaning. I had only been watching her for a few minutes when she grabbed onto the gate and used it to stand up. After turning back and smiling – she had to make sure I was watching her – she stuck one of her toes into a gap in the gate’s plastic netting and grabbed the wooden crossbar at the top with all ten tiny fingers. I watched in amusement as the just-now-developing muscles in her soft little arms began to twitch and shake as she strained to lift herself off the ground. Of course I had to call Susan over to watch before I took her down. So cute. Yet I couldn’t help but have a nagging feeling that this might be a sign of things to come…

For the time being, I think that this is the cutest new development since giggling. What’s next, walking?