Lookin' for trouble

Molly has made a big leap in independence this week. Her attention span is suddenly longer than just a few seconds and she'll now sit on the kitchen floor and put objects into a dish tub and take them out again for 15 minutes or more sometimes. Occasionally she's so engrossed that she doesn't run across the room when I open the dishwasher or freezer. I've been waiting for this for a long time.

What I wasn't prepared for was that this new independence would mean I need to pay more attention to her, not less. We have had more injuries and mishaps in the past week than ever before. Nothing big, thank God, but I'm exhausted. Here's just one example of what I see when I look over to check on her quiet play.



Jim actually took this picture after we moved her little adventure sport onto the carpet from the hard kitchen floor.

In the past few days Molly has pulled a high chair down on her head on the cement basement floor, trying to climb into it. She has fallen out of our bed in several different ways, one resulting a scrape all the way up her back from the nightstand.

You just can't turn your back on her, even when she's doing something that used to be completely safe. The other day I showed her a pretty row of flowers on our bleeding heart plant out front. I looked the other way to pull a few weeds and when I looked back she had two fists full of flowers and a pile on the ground -- not one left on the plant.

None of this is malicious. She's just so adventurous and curious.

She's also really silly. We spent some time on the deck this afternoon running around having puppy crazies.




She's dancing to the music in her head.