Baby Mutant: Tornado

The last thirty minutes have been spent with me holding baby girl tightly to my chest and trying to prevent heart attack aftershocks. I'm sure this is one of those moments I probably shouldn't blog about because child protective services will be banging on my door seconds after it is published.

Children are miraculous in their ability to learn, experiment, and live without defeat or fear. Miraculous: always, but not necessarily the good kind of miracle.

Hannah has been rolling from her tummy to her back for a couple weeks now. She is much more optimistic about tummy time than Noah was. Sometimes, we can't keep her on her back. I have only seen her roll from her belly to her back once. It seemed an exhaustive effort, and she was disinclined to ever try it again. Therefore, from past experience, I assumed my daughter to be capable of moving at her best about three feet in either direction.

I want her to be able to move about and explore her world, so I will lay her down on a big blanket in the middle of the floor. Tonight the blanket was positioned like so:

Any of you who have had young children can probably already see where we are going with this. In my defense, the perspective on this photograph doesn't show that the blanket is five feet long, the distance past that to the left corner of the stairs is over six feet, and I was sitting next to Hannah playing at the edge of the blanket furthest from the stairs.

From the kitchen, Noah started begging for some milk. There was a cup ready in the fridge for him, so I got up to grab it, and hand it to him. It took me all of one minute.

I heard Hannah make a noise from the living room, so I patted Noah on the head and looked over. There was my baby girl at the far left corner of the stairs (because that's the highest point, silly mommy)  one leg dangling over the edge, most of her body laying under the railing, trying to roll over and away one more time. I freaked. I don't think that the English language has the letters to form the sound that I shrieked as I dashed into the living room, slid baby girl out from under the railing, and crushed her to my chest. Noah, baby girl's fellow daredevil, looked at me with big eyes that said, "What is your problem? That looks like fun!"

Still, I am trying to conceive of how she could cover more than eleven feet in less than sixty seconds. I think I have an X-Men child, who's mutant name is Tornado. She has some kind of super stable inner ear canal and super-physics rotational musculature. I've started designing her hero outfit in my head. "The Pink Tornado." It's adorable.

She's fine.   See:

I had a coronary, but she's fine.

After strapping her tightly into her bouncer (just in case the Pink Tornado decided to strike again), I retrieved the walker from the basement and the pack n play from Noah's room. She has lost her free range Hannah privileges. Blanket time only occurs now when mommy or daddy is within arm's reach.