Baby Houdini

This morning we went in to get Nico up and found him sitting up in his crib. We felt very proud but actually, it was more creepy than anything else. Every morning for 11 months we have gone in to find him lying flat on his back and that's what we're used to. What we are not used to is going in to find a pair of eyes peering directly at us through the crib bars. So strange was it that my first thought was not "Oh wow! How did he figure out how to do that?" but rather, "Who put him there??" To be honest, I'm not sure if we would have been any less surprised had he said good morning in Yiddish or had we entered the room to find him hovering in the air over his bed. It's like when Nico's little friend Aiden started saying "go" and "dog" recently. It just seemed so unnatural. You spend 11 months watching someone do nothing but drool, scream and babble meaninglessly and then all of a sudden they look up at you one day and say "dog." It's downright freaky I think, like a little alien just climbed out of their mouth or something.

The whole sitting in the crib thing this morning sort of reminded me of the several months that we spent referring to Nico as "our little Houdini." This was mainly because the kid could wrangle his way out of just about any sort of situation he was placed in. As a newborn I could never swaddle him because he'd be out of that thing in less than 30 seconds. For a while I tried actually tying his arms down by wrapping a ripped up sheet around his entire body but even that didn't work for long. This was really unfortunate because without having his arms pinned down in some way, Nico wouldn't sleep for more than about 20 minutes tops due to the spasmodic flingings of his limbs. Out of curiosity one day, my mom and I even tried to weight his arms down with a huge hardback copy of Leon Uris's The Exodus (the heaviest book we could locate in the near vicinity) but even that didn't work. It's a good thing too because at that point I was willing to try anything and would have been more than happy to tuck Nico in each night with a giant book strapped to the top of his body.

Luckily Nico eventually outgrew the need to be swaddled and life got a bit easier. Despite this however, the astonishing escapes continued. The most noteworthy is perhaps what has come to be known in our house as "The Day of the Great Pants Removal." It started off when Mr. D put Nico down for his afternoon nap in his crib. An hour or so later when he went in to get him, he found Nico all the way on the other side of the crib with no pants on and no blanket covering him. What was most amazing was that both the blanket and the little corduroy pants were still in exactly the same positions as when Mr. D had last seen them only with no body inside. Of course these days Nico could accomplish such a feat blindfolded with both hands tied behind his back but then he was only 4 months old so it really was pretty impressive. It's so obvious that he's a total genius.

Nico's other new thing is kissing although he seems to be under the impression that kisses are performed with the nose rather than the lips. If you tell him to kiss something he'll very very slowly bring his face closer and closer to the object until his nose is resting right up against it. He'll stay there for a second and then very very slowly move away. Kiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Comments

[Denise]

Nico is such a cutie. I'm heading home for Easter and I cant wait to hang out with my cousins little girl whos about 8 months old. She is always doing somehting new when I see her.

[Birdypups]

That kiss thing is sooo cute. It must be amazing to watch a little baby start doing all these new things. Bittersweet too. Your little package is on its way! I hope you like it.

[Stephanie]

I agree Annejelynn. Maybe you should add "Baby Houdini" to Nico's resume. It's certainly impressive.

[Annejelynn]

baby kisses are the bestest - I'd take a baby nose-kiss over an open-mouthed slobbery baby kiss any day though