Raising The Bar

Arthur wanted something this morning at scary reading hour. So he crawled. At first it didn't register that he had done it and I had to ask the other mothers present, "Did he just crawl?"

Later today we were sitting on the couch and Muriel jumped up on it and over to the table where we've put her food. Supposedly moving her food and water dishes up on the table behind the couch will keep Arthur from choking on cat food. As soon as he saw the cat, he entwined his fingers in the goatskin throw on the back of the couch and pulled himself to a stand. If he could have gotten a purchase with his feet, he would have been over the couch in an instant. I'm not sure which impulse would have won out -- to try to twist the cat's ear off or eat her food.

Still later, I was sitting on the step to our kitchen with Arthur. The permanent ladder up to the writing loft is there. Arthur's clever little hands grasped the lowest most rung and I could hear the wheels in his brain whirling. If he gets up into the loft, we'll have to find a new place for the sharp and pointy fish table which used to live next to the couch. Oh, yeah; and install a parachute Automatic Activation Device in all his clothes so when he falls out of the loft an emergency crash balloon inflates. It's either that or Mark will want to do something like take a chainsaw to the house and remove all the lofts...

And he can't even walk yet.