Patrick loves going over to Oma und Opa’s house because they feed him anything he wants, they have a cat that is fun to chase around the house, and they have stairs!!!! Patrick has climbed these stairs 5 times now, and he absolutely loves it!!!!
Ever since Patrick discovered that he could propel himself across the floor by rolling, then creeping, and now crawling, he’s been getting into all sorts of mischief. He has a special knack for finding the one piece of dirt on an otherwise spotless floor. And when that dirt is picked up by his chubby little hands, the first place it goes is immediately into the mouth. I’ve had a couple of occasions with this turned into a near disaster. The first was while Andrew and I were moving into our new apartment, Patrick found a piece of plastic that had broken off my white board. I had no idea it was on the floor, and he found it and started choking on it. From then on, I learned my lesson to keep the floors super clean and keep all possible choking hazards out of reach. But apparently that hasn’t been good enough. Just yesterday Patrick pulled out a clump of carpet fibers in his carefully babysafed room, and started gagging on them. He was really mad when I pulled them out of his mouth. He really wanted to eat that carpet. Then, we had another incident today!!! After church I went down to the nursery to pick him up, and Mrs. Bond was holding him. I stopped to chat for a little bit and as we were talking, Mrs. Bond noticed that Patrick had something in his mouth (AGAIN!!!!). He started struggling to get away because he didn’t want anyone to take his precious mouthful, but having 6 kids, she knew what she was doing. She pulled out a tiny green sparkly barrette that some little girl in the nursery was probably wearing in her hair this morning. I have no idea how he found it, although I have this funny mental picture of Patrick pulling out of a little baby’s hair. I’m just so thankful that Mrs. Bond realized there was something wrong before we started driving home. My little boy is very, very dangerous to himself and I desperately hope that we don’t have any more of these incidents. It’s hard to keep my eyes on him constantly, and even if he’s in a “safe” room, he still manages to choke on the carpet. WOW. When do kids outgrow the “stick everything in my mouth” phase???
Patrick seems to have some big, new change about every week or so. Lately I’ve noticed that he’s starting to crawl on his hands and feet instead of his knees. He looks so comical when he does. Hopefully one of these days I’ll be able to get a picture or a video of him doing it. His big feat last week was climbing up the stairs at Oma and Opa’s house not once, but four times. He’s really getting big fast. On Sunday he’ll be 11 months old… so he’s almost a year. I can’t believe my little baby is growing up. It has happened so fast. Sometimes I miss the tiny, helpless baby I brought home from the hospital… until I remember waking up every three hours for feedings! Someday I’m sure Andrew and I will be happy to have another baby, but until then I’m going to enjoy full nights’ rests!!!!
This is the castle where Andrew and I stayed for our wedding night and our two year anniversary. It’s such a beautiful place to stay, and it’s right here in Lakewood, Washington. You can see more pictures here.
Here is 10 1/2 month old Patrick spending time with Daddy!
