Mason (11 months old) started crawling a few weeks ago and is now cruising (rather quickly) all over the house. He managed to pull himself up on the pack-n-play once this past week and now there is no stopping him.
He pulls up on anything he can find including the stroller, a rocking chair, the highchair, any and all tables and shelves - especially the ones with sharp edges, and even the diaper pail. Most of which, topple over on him which then leads to a outburst of crying.
The crib is no longer a place to sleep but a jail cell that he needs to find his way out of. He no longer will just lay down in his crib when we put him down to sleep, since he learned to pull up. Now he is jumping and yelling and using every bit of strength to try to heave himself out of his crib.
Bedtime now involves listening to Mason yell on the monitor for about 30-45 minutes before he passes out.
Diaper changes are now a full on acrobatic act. He twists, turns, tries to crawl off of the changing table and we are constantly trying to keep him upright and straight. I have now changed a diaper while he is standing, lying face down, and being held up by my husband with his legs dangling.
We give him toys to distract him during the diaper change, but inevitably he loses interest and rolls over and tries to leave...diaper changes are just not on his agenda which we now strictly abide by.
Needless to say, we thought we were tired before, and now we are exhausted. He will do anything to get onto the ground to crawl around and hates being contained in any way. He is like a crazed animal that gets into everything and is highly attracted to all outlets, phones, remotes, and cords.
The thousands of toys strewn about our house are of little to no interest to him, but the TV remote is like gold - he will lunge from our arms to get to the remote and burst into tears if he doesn't get his hands on it. He will crawl through a sea of toys, batting them out of the way with anger, to get to the remote. It is like instinctually he knows exactly what is not his and zeros in on it just to drive us crazy.
Our sweet, sweet, baby is now a maniac. And it is somehow our job to control him and teach him lessons, manners, and social skills. We are feeling completely and utterly inept for this job.
I just walked around my house after a particularly crazy day with Mason and stuff is everywhere. Our stuff, his stuff, kitchen stuff, nothing is making it back to its carefully thought out place.
Sometimes I just walk right by the mess and don't pick it up because I know that in a few hours or the next day it will all get pulled apart again. My world of constant organization has been completely turned upside down and I am absolutely way too tired to put it back together.
Things that used to take us minutes to do now take days...laundry now sits in the dryer for hours, even days at times and dishes pile up in the sink.
I hope we will find an hour when he naps this weekend to finally clean it all up, I just can't believe that this is my life sometimes.
I loved being organized and keeping a clean home and before Mason I actually wondered how other moms could "let things go" in their homes once they had children.
I am completely humbled at this point and shall never judge another parent again on the cleanliness and/or organization of their home - when you are raising babies - everything is fair game.
