It's the end of the world as we know it

It's all over. He's crawling. Nolan is crawling, ladies and gentlemen. And life as we know is about to come to a screeching halt.

He's been on the verge for about three weeks now, getting on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth and then slumping down to his belly, wiggling backwards and all that, but yesterday the light bulb went on and he put three slide-knee-forward-and-lift-hand movements together in a row.

So now, instead of staying in a pretty pre-determined radius on the living room rug when I put him down, he's gonna be all over the friggin' place, finding all the (probably numerous) instances where we haven't completely thought through the childproofing measures we've taken.

The books all tell you to get down on your hands and knees and look at things from the child's point of view to see what they might find interesting, and I actually did that, but I think the problem with that approach is that I don't think like a ten month old (thank God). I have absolutely zero interest in the speaker wire behind the stereo as long as it does its job and provides us with music, but to Nolan speaker wire is apparently a tasty appetizer. Ditto the tumbling tumbleweeds* of cat hair under every piece of furniture. I am quite capable of looking at them and going, "Ew, cat hair" and moving on, but I think Nolan will add them to his list of Nasty Things That I Must Taste Immediately.

The funny thing is, I was so worried because Nolan seemed to me to be rather late in learning to crawl. My friend Christa's daughter Samantha is 7 weeks younger than Nolan and she had crawling mastered about a month ago. I was trying to remain calm and tell myself all those things that the What To Expect bible tells you, namely "Every child develops at their own pace" and "There is a wide range of normal" and blah blah blah. Secretly I was afraid Nolan would be so delayed he'd have to crawl onstage to get his high school diploma.

I guess it's one of those grass is always greener kind of things, because Christa babysat Nolan one night and she was marveling over how long he was content to sit and play with a toy compared to Sam, who is like the Tasmanian Devil all over the room.

So I'm looking forward to the next few weeks of "No, don't touch that!" and "Yuck, that's dirty!" and "Oh my God, what the hell is in your mouth?!?!" And when I say looking forward, I mean dreading like a tetanus shot.

Thanks for reading.

*If you don't now have the opening scene of The Big Lebowski stuck in your head, well...that's just sad.