Monkey House

In theory, the idea is to give the monkey a bit more independence and freedom.

After all, he’s not only crawling now, but pulling himself up to standing, and beginning to “transfer” from one handhold to the next. He’s not quite doing a lateral shuffle yet, but rather getting his hands from where they are at “point A” to a new handhold at “point B” and then bringing his feet along for the ride. Once he starts doing it the other way around, it’ll be only a matter of weeks before walk-stumbling and then walk-headbanging and then walking.

But in practice, it’s time to jail that sucker in.
Read the rest of this entry »

I heard it from any number of parents: “something just clicks, and away they go.”

Happened over the weekend for the Monkey. He understood that using his hands and knees was more efficient than the army crawl, for movement and also for seeing and grabbing things. In pretty much the same ‘play session’ he also discovered pulling himself to standing.

So, we not only have a little guy who can motor from point A to point B in seconds (whereas before it took ages if he could get there at all), but once he’s at point B, he will grab at anything of a reasonable height and try to pull himself up.

You think to yourself, “When he can entertain himself a bit more, I’ll be able to sort of catch some TV or sort of play some video games while he’s playing.”

Nuh-uh.
Read the rest of this entry »

Since the last day of Parental Leave, I haven’t written anything about the experience. I suppose I wanted the last entry to be special and insightful, but instead, it is what it is. There was nothing particularly noteworthy to blog about for the last day, so this was going to be a reflective piece on my 2 months as “Daddy Daycare.” But this week my energy levels have been ultra-low. New schedule has taken the mick out of me. So, I’ll get the ball rolling with some blabbing and maybe by the end of it all there will be some noteworthy reflection.
Read the rest of this entry »

The last day of Parental Leave was a Friday. That meant a visit from Grammy (Grammie?) and Abuelito.

Part of me wanted to do something memorable, but honestly… what can you do? The best thing to make sure it was a great last day was to have help.

Nothing of particular interest happened. Watched some TV (Olympics), had some naps, did a little bit (a very little bit) of cleaning. Having grandparents there is always awesome.

And then it was over!

Sorry for the anti-climax!

I tried posting, but our internets have been lame lately. Here is tonight’s speed, which is actually a GOOD connection for what we’ve had lately:

At least that’s a connection. The last 2 times I’ve tried updating the blog, I haven’t been able to get the page to load without timing out.

So, yeah. Here’s what happened:
Read the rest of this entry »