Sunday, April 03, 2005

Elisabeth's big day

My girls are changing every day, it seems.

Elisabeth used to be a limp, weak baby with low muscle tone for a long time after her open heart surgery at five months of age. Now she and Catherine are 22 months old (19.5 months since their due date).

After her rough start, Elisabeth is still small, only about 17 pounds, and can't quite walk yet without holding onto something. However, these days she does climb up the stairs quite handily with every opportunity. That's whenever we forget to latch the baby gate and she's not otherwise confined in her crib or in the big pen in the living room. That was her first adventure today, when I caught her teetering on the 6th or 7th step.

Then I left her in the baby swing while I went upstairs to work on the computer to write my race report. I come downstairs a little later and she's roaming around the living room, with a red bump on her forehead. The seat belt of the swing is still latched, and it's swinging away along all on its own. Somehow she managed to extricate herself from it and fall out. Or she jumped out. It's about 18 inches off the floor. I have no idea how she got down.

My principal duty these days is simply keeping the girls from killing themselves. It's a big job to keep them alive until they reach the age of reason, or at least achieve a nominal fear of heights.

3 comments:

Adam Born said...

Ah, the joys of the fearless child. :0) Good luck. It sounds like Elisabeth will be the one to go bombing down all the big hills in the neighborhood on her bike!

Anonymous said...

Looks like my daughter can now pass on the title of "Little Miss Houdini" to Elisabeth, LOL!

Can the baby swing fit in the same room as your computer?

Anonymous said...

lol, isnt it amazing what kids can do,, I really am thankful my oldest lived past five,, he is now 15 and no worse for wear,, the other two are 13 and 7, but it seemed like the oldest was where we learned how to keep kids safe. Or the other two just were not so unlucky. :)
Heather