All over again

This week I was trying to piece together Little Brother’s baby book. I thought about Big Brother’s baby book and how writing about what the kids do weekly kind of helps out in the memories department. If I ever forget what happened when, due to aging, the column is my own little timeline. It got me thinking about how long it’s been. I mean I miss a week here or there for various reasons but it has been over four years since I began this column. This month Little Brother is the exact age that Big Brother was when this column was created. That brings back a lot of memories, you know about how to stay one step ahead of a baby whose life’s mission is to get around you and whatever else is in his way.

Little Brother is learning to run now. It is a cute sight. He gets good speed for about five or six steps at (little brother) running speed and then falls hands first. It’s like his upper body is going too fast for his bottom half and he tips over. His little butt is the first part of him back up, then he’ll stand and repeat. I give it a few more days and he’ll have worked the rest of the balance kinks out. Yes, it reminds me of Big Brother and how I would watch him walking around in awe that this little baby was too small to be walking around. Now I am watching in awe as the second little baby seems too small to be walking.

Little Brother has become even busier. He likes to pull the dryer open while the clothes are still wet. He blessed me with the gift of water this week. We recently got a front loader washing machine so all the buttons are on the front and within reach of little fingers. He turned it off while it was in the middle of the wash cycle. I usually notice as he does it and reset it. I distinctly remembered how I scooped him up this day and plopped him in his highchair to feed him. I remembered right when a machine full of water spilled over my feet and across the whole floor. He is always touching the buttons and turning the knob, changing delicate to a bulky setting. The laundry area is setup in a little hallway between my bedroom and the kitchen. I put the baby gate up while I did laundry but he just climbs to the top of it and gets stuck. He’ll get one leg over and just cry because he doesn’t know what to do after that. Instead of waiting for our next baby gate injury I just deal. Another year and he won’t think the washer and dryer are so cool. Big Brother used to pull clothes out of the dryer too. He’d climb in it. One time he snuck in there with gum and I found out after I threw a load of clothes in there and they all came out sticky from melted gum. Little Brother hasn’t managed to break the dryer by sticking toys and socks down the lint trap like Big Brother did but he has managed to get his brother to sneak him gum!

Little Brother is also a cupboard baby. He has his own section of bottom cupboards that are sippy cups, bowls and snacks. He’ll walk up to me with a cup and say, “cup, mum mums” and hand me which he has and would like me to fix him up with. The other bottom cupboards are canned foods and pantry items. He plays in there about every day. We say he’s in there shopping. Big Brother was so persistent about getting in those cupboards at that age that we went through three kinds of baby locks and they all failed to keep him out. We got some new locks when Little Brother started crawling but were undermined by a Big Brother looking out for his brother’s interests. I have found the cupboard locks in the toy box, under Big Brother’s mattress, behind the movies on the shelf, and a few right in the garbage.

For now the bed is next to the crib to catch Little Brother. Instead of getting down to the floor he’ll land on me and then I’ll be awake. I can just imagine how sneaky Little Brother thought he was climbing out of his crib and thinking he was going to be unsupervised to roam freely in the middle of the night. Little Brother is Big Brother all over again! Big Brother broke my dishwasher when he was Little Brother’s age by turning the knob until he burned it out. Now I have a place to lock away all the pots and pans from Little Brother. He’s rough and would hurt himself slamming those heavy things around. He can turn that dishwasher knob all he wants, as long as he doesn’t get the thing open and climb in. He is getting crazy climbing. There is no keeping that baby anywhere, if wants to escape he will.