Child Proof

The time has come that I'd been dreading for a while: the time when Baby Girl Yan can move around freely at home, and we need to childproof the home. For a long time it felt like we could just let baby sleep in the bassinet, assured that the high railings would prevent her from falling out. Then she started to flip over, and we couldn't leave her in there anymore unsupervised. Then it was the play area; for a while she could just play there on her back and would stay confined there. Now, she is able to explore her surroundings and crawl her way out, sliding through the floor to other destinations. The world is her oyster, and it's our job as parents to prevent the world from hurting her, or baby hurting herself. This means putting up guardrails (luckily right now we don't have stairs in our unit, but eventually we probably will), making sure things can't fall on top of her, removing unsafe materials from baby's reach. It's a development stage that eventually she was going to get to, but I can't help feelin that baby is ALREADY growing up too fast. Is that even possible at 7 months? Maybe it is, because she has changed dramatically since her infant 0-2 month days, even just her facial experessions and general demeanor. And we know she can only get bigger, not go back to those infant days ever again. Oh and now she's flipping over in the changing table area every time we try to change her diaper, making it that much more difficult. Pretty soon we'll have to change her just on the ground or on the bed. Still a lot more diapers to go though......we're still at stage 3 of the diaper sizes we buy in bulk from Costco- it goes all the way up to Stage 6, we're not even halfway. I wonder what it's like for parents when their children become potty-trained: probably similar to how I feel now, proud that baby is growing up and becoming her own person, but also sad they've passed another stage as a baby that they'll never return to, and they're just another step towards independence and not needing their parents anymore. It's interesting how fruit flies really like Baby's poop: they surround her diaper trash disposal all the time to try to get in there. I guess Korean people call them "ddon-pari," or "poop flies?" Whatever is in the formula and the solid food Baby has started, the flies really can't get enough of it. I think I'll look back on this first year of the baby as the good ol' days for sure, the brain will probably do some mental gymnastics to filter out all the sweat and toil us parents went through to get baby throught the first year and only focus on the smiles, the happiness, the first words, the first steps, etc. This will also be the time, as mcuh as I rant about the injustice of losing on Jeopardy and how close I was and how unlucky I got, I'll look back on at the end of my life as a time when I felt so ALIVE, that there were still possibilities for me, that I cared about things and still pursued knowledge with vigor because I could still say I was building up to something, that it could all still be useful. That will probably end on November or whenever the Second Chance tournament is, whether or not they actually select me, because regardless that will be the last time I play Jeopardy, there will be nothing to study for Jeopardy-wise after that (well, maybe Pop Culture Jeopardy although I'm not good enough for that show to have realistic hopes of winning). This is the time now when I feel most "in the groove," have the most anticipation, have the most desire to maximize my chances to do well. I gotta baby's living area child proof, and my Jeopardy-brain blunder-proof (impossible to get everything, but at least avoid the costly errors).