Nothing is safe in this house any more.
In the last couple of days, Eloïse has started climbing out of her high chair and onto the dining-room table; but that’s not all.
She climbed the stairs for the first time a couple of days ago; under supervision, yes, but still. You just can’t turn your back on her any more. Before you know it, she’s off and running.
She crawls around the house at high speed now and can scramble up onto the couch from the floor. She then stands on the couch, leaning forwards onto its back, and jiggles up and down with enthusiasm. It’s only a matter of time before she climbs over the back of the couch and falls freely to the ground.
She used to be content to sit and play with toys, but not any more. She still does that sometimes, of course, but as often as not, she’ll pull herself to her feet, lean against the couch and then walk around its perimeter to the side-tables we have, where she proceeds to help herself to anything we’ve been foolish enough to leave on them.
Yes, the time has come to babyproof the house, although it’s rather daunting knowing where to start. I need to find some kind of expert to come in and assess the place.
On the eating front, she’s doing well with lots of fruit and vegetables. The consultatiebureau told us to give her bread, because the masticatory action would supposedly expedite the path to speech, but this seems to be nonsense as far as we can tell. There’s so little nutritional value in bread and so much potential for allergies of one kind or another, that we’re holding off on introducing too many grains at once.
Speaking of speech, she’s still babbling like a loon at regular intervals; anything from LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA to BA-BA-BA-BA-BA-BA-BA to PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA. It’s easy to think Papa is in there somewhere, but that’s just egocentrical wishful thinking.