Bumper Car Charlie

My kid is a fire ball. From the time he opens his eyes 'til the merciful moment he finally loses his grip on wakefulness again, he is balls to the wall gettin' some shit done! When we were on vacation, we used the walker a lot, and he figured out how to move around in it. He used to only be able to move backwards. Now he zips around like a kid in the bumper cars ride at the fair. If only I could find one of those little flags to mount on the back of his walker.

There's a little "hunny pot" on his Winnie the Pooh walker that plays music when you push the lid down. Farmer in the Dell, Three Blind Mice, Oh Suzanna, etc. He has to have music going constantly, so as soon as one song stops he bangs the hunny pot until another starts, then resumes bashing into things. The kitchen, dining room, and the room with no apparent purpose are all in a big L shape, and now that the pool table is gone there's really nothing in the way except the dining room table. So he clatters from the bay window, past the table, to the oven where he looks at his reflection in the glass, then turns around and rattles back to the bay window again to the tune of Old McDonald Had a Farm. Back and forth, back and forth. The only time he stops is when he decides to go around the back of the dining room table and gets hung up in a chair until I go free him, and sometimes he stops to pull things out of the garbage can, and I have to go stop him from eating egg shells covered in coffee grinds.

He can stand up now, too, as well as climb the two little steps in the living room. The sunken living room used to be a safe place to leave him while I went to the bathroom or whatever, but a few days ago Tim and I were both getting ready to go somewhere, and we came out of the bathroom to find Charlie in the entry way chewing on a cat toy and pulling books off the shelf.


That day we bought a baby gate. A huge one.



Pookie was banished to the outdoors for a few weeks after he pissed on the couch in the room with no purpose. He spent the entire time begging to be let back inside. I set up a litter box for him and let him back in. As soon as he realized how mobile Charlie had become, he started begging to be let out again. Charlie loves pulling Pookie's tail almost as much as he likes bashing into my ankles with his walker. Like the cat, sometimes I just want to find a high place to hide.