Looking for Trouble

Before I started [sporadically] writing again this summer, I predicted that my blogging would be cut short by the start of classes or Owen's walking.  The latter, as I posted several weeks ago, has begun.  And oh my, how life has changed.

People warned me that this would happen.  Seasoned moms laughed knowingly as they foreshadowed the end of downtime as I knew it.  But in a state of near-pathological denial, I shook my head, said that couldn't be true.  I rationalized that Owen was already all over the place as a crawler, and how different could walking really be?

The answer: completely, unrecognizably, turn-everything-on-its-head, suck-every-ounce-of-energy-out-of-your-bones different.

With the newfound physical skill, there came an unanticipated mental shift, a sudden bolus dose of independence.  Where Crawling Owen got into everything within a 10 foot radius of where we were playing, Walking Owen prefers to dash into other rooms -- a lone hunter in search of trouble -- and rediscover whatever toilet or closet or cabinet he was most recently pulled away from.  This morning after one such episode, he looked me in the eye, flashed a sweet smile of mischief, and shook his head "no" as he tried to topple a floor lamp.

At least we know he has a sense of humor.