Ninja Zoo

It was with a heavy heart and an even heavier liver that we bid my mother farewell on Saturday. She earned her share of the Grandmas of the Year award with her tireless babysitting, her delicious dinner-making and her competitive wine drinking. But with her out of the picture again, Kitty and I had to reacquaint ourselves with a son that we hadn't been allowed to touch for a week.

And we were immediately reminded that we are out of our league.

Finn has already decided that crawling is not nearly a fast enough means of conveyance. He now requires constant assisted walks around the house, where we hold his hands as he runs as fast as he can from dangerous corner to sharp protrusion and back. Our baby gates couldn't arrive fast enough.

But arrive they did, and the first one is now in place. Surveying our house and realizing that we are, above all else, very lazy people, we opted to first babyproof the only room without grabbable knobs or furniture -- the kitchen. It only takes one baby gate and some cat food relocation to turn the kitchen into a little Finn-pen. Add in some hand-me-down playmats and toys and we've got a little Ninja Paradise.

Of course, paradise gets a little dicey when we start cooking and bacon fat starts flying everywhere, but the grease on the floor helps him get across the room that much faster so it's win-win. Plus, he smells awesome after crawling around on the floor. It's almost like he's wearing a bacon onesie.

Here's the kitchen-dweller trying on a new hat in his new digs. Notice all the crap on his shirt that he's cleaned up off the floor. Given the fact that this kid moves constantly, it took extreme patience to get this shot. Art Wolfe, eat your heart out.


In other news, for the past 3-weeks the Ninja has been sleeping from 8 PM through until 4 AM. This is an unprecedented development and came out of nowhere. We didn't do anything; he just decided that he didn't need to wake up at midnight for that bottle anymore. I've been hesitant to mention it, since I'm superstitious about this stuff. I spent 15 minutes knocking on wood and trying to "un-jinx" Penn State toward the end of last weekend's game when the announcers were already talking about the Orange Bowl. But at this point, I'm totally digging it.

Of course, I'm now terrified of how he's going to handle the Fall Back. Kitty's been steadily moving back his bedtime by a couple of minutes each night, but we have no idea whether that's going to work.

Let's just hope that this doesn't happen. I'm afraid that the borders between my Swear Zone and Helpful Parent Zone aren't always clearly marked.

Thank God for mommies.