Cheeky's Hideaway

The Rise of the Destructor!

When I was a kid we had a sandbox in our backyard.  I would construct fortifications and build entire towns from upside-down cups, and populate them with Star Wars figures and Adventure People.  Then I'd drag out the garden hose and drown them all in a torrential flood.  As C-3PO and Chewbacca's screams were muffled by the collapsing town, I'd pick their sand-caked bodies out of the sludge, rinse them off, and set them aside while the sandbox drained, and I prepared my next disaster.

This must be where my daughter gets it from. 

Our delightful, well-mannered daughter does not build things.  She tears them down.  We've moved our floor plant into our bedroom now that all the lower leaves have been torn off.  The morning paper is shredded in an explosion of crinkling confetti.  And the toys...don't even get me started on the toys.

Our new favorite game is Daddy teaching her to stack blocks or cups to build a tower.  It goes something like this:

"Look Cheeky.  I've stacked one...two...three...four cups together.  Watch how I do it."

Karate chop!  The cups scatter.  I fetch them.

"Let's try it again.  See how fun it is to build?  One...two..."

Arm swipe cuts through the middle of the pyramid.  The cups scatter.  I fetch them.

"Oh no!  Ka-Pow!  So fun!  You did it!  Now, let's try to stack them again.  Boys destroy things, but pretty girls like you want to build them and make them pretty, right?"

Cheeky grabs a cup, looks up at me, smiles, and sling-shots it so far across the room that I can still hear it rolling under the dining room table and into the den a minute later. 

Is this the new face of destruction and chaos?  Believe it!

Scootin' Like a Roomba

It occurs to me that I haven't actually done a legitimate Cheeky update in a while, which is rather sad considering this is her Hideaway. BAD DADDY! I've been so busy blathering on about basketball, TV, and tropical drinks that I assumed she was pretty much the same as she was two months ago, and therefore required no additional press.  In truth, the kids freakin' hilarious, and although she hasn't completed her doctoral thesis yet (the footnotes are a killer) she's definitely progressing in other areas.

It used to be that we could take our eyes off her for a couple of seconds (to eat, perchance to pee) and she wouldn't have moved further than a few inches from her previous quadrant. But she's perfected the full military crawl, and she's motoring around the house like she's trying to outflank snipers. It's a little eerie to glance at a space that moments earlier contained an infant but now just contains the settling dust she left behind.  Then there's the shock of coming around a corner and having her RIGHT THERE, or glancing around the room only to see her little head popping up in an unexpected place. It's pretty funny, at least until you hear the *thwap* of something hitting her head that you had no idea she could reach.

The other thing she's learned to do is wave.  At first she was waving to herself, or maybe challenging us.  She'd stare at her hand as it opened and closed like it was a sea anemone, then look at us to confirm that she was doing it right.  Now we stand over her like idiots waving--and waving and waving--and saying "Hi, Cheeky! Hi, Cheeky" until finally, after staring at us like...well, like we're idiots, until slowly, timidly, she raises her hand and sort of flaps it around.  Sure, it's more of a spasm than a wave, but the entertainment value is immense.

Our biggest concern now that she's gone mobile is keeping her entertained on the pending cross-country flight.  It's a loooooong flight from New York to Seattle, and unless we befriend a babysitting flight attendant it's gonna feel even looooooonger.  Any thoughts on 8-month old entertainment when trapped in a pressurized cabin?  Anyone? 

Without a Net

Today, we embark into uncharted waters.  For the next month, we will be...without Grandma! 

Our dependable, ace-in-the-whole, FREE babysitter is fleeing the continent, leaving us to fend for ourselves just as Cheeky has grasped the awesome power of her new-found mobility.  She's been covering for us a lot the last few months, with occasional sleepovers and enough piece-of-mind that we could unload the kid for our own vacation.  We shudder to think of four weeks without having a contingency plan when we need to get out of the house.  How dare she take a once-in-a-lifetime adventure when we need spoiling??   Then again, how cool is an African safari?  Except for the hubcap-sized spiders and rampaging river-horse, of course (although I hear cape buffaloes are more dangerous...)

Personally, I think we'll be fine.  Oodgie is more skeptical, since she gets the day-shift, but as long as we have Sapphire & tonic and BJ & Tyler, we'll use the night-shift to compensate.

You Cannot Stop Her, You Can Only Hope to Contain Her

Our lives of sedentary parenting are numbered.  Now that Cheeky's realized that a little bit of effort can result in forward thrust or centripetal force, she's started rehearsing for the Clown/Krump Battlezone.  Like all objects with mass, however, she is subject to the same laws of Newtonian physics which govern marbles, asteroids, and frisbees.  For example:

1)  Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

The application of this law is evident approximately 10 minutes prior to her being retrieved from her crib.  It's during this hatching phase that she builds up the initial momentum (stored as potential energy until awakened by gas) which will carry her through to her next nap.  It generally starts as simple shuffling around the crib, but develops into full drum corps routines, complete with kicking and thrown objects.  Eventually her arms are a blur of movement, or she's twisting into full scorpion pose to retrieve the Times Metro section.  Fortunately, we have deep wells of external force to apply when she tries propelling herself into the coffee table, and as long as I'm not distracted by Godzilla vs. Gigan or Jesus Christ Superstar (as I was today...daytime TV sucks) I can usually keep that motion within a confined space. 

2)  The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma.

I've learned this the hard way.  There's not a lot of mass in Cheeky's little hands, but there's an enormous amount of acceleration when she goes for my chest hairs or neck fat.  She pounds her chest so hard I sometimes think she'll break a rib, and her kicks (especially when my crotch is in the vicinity) have the well-aimed precision of Ikken hissatsu.  I can't wait for the day I get brained by a teething ring to the temple.

3)  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This law is the most enjoyable to watch.  For example, if your action is to roll onto your stomach, but you've never learned to roll back, then the reaction is ten minutes of struggling and grunting while the only thing you can see is a stuffed giraffe or a table leg 3 inches from your face.  The time would be shorter if your parents weren't amused enough to watch it for that long.  If your action is to squirm out of our arms onto the couch, then the reaction is the pillow falling onto your head when you hit the cushion with a resounding "poof" sound.  Unfortunately, this law applies to events which happen to her, so if my action is to toss Cheeky into the air, the reaction is to be doused with metabolically altered applesauce. 

God help us if we ever have to put Cheeky in one of these....