The wounded soldier

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

No, sorry… this isn’t some dramatic account from some military operation. This is about my grandson.

He’s seven months old now, and while they do grow up so fast, it’s also still a new enough thing that it’s hard to believe that only seven month ago, he wasn’t even here, and now he’s forcing me to do something I absolutely hate — sweep.

Yes, he’s crawling now… or rather I should say he’s “crawling” now, because it’s not your standard hands-and-knees crawling that he’s doing. He does this thing where he braces himself on his left elbow and kind of launches himself with his legs, often reaching out with his right arm for whatever it is that he’s attempting to reach. It looks, as the title of this column suggests, like he’s a little wounded soldier crawling across the battlefield trying to reach his foxhole — only the battlefield is the living

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room floor and the foxhole is his little Batman plushie or his light-up beatboxing puppy play pad.

Well, actually these days it’s just as likely to be a leaf or a tuft of cat hair. Because that is his new favorite thing to do.

He does the wounded soldier across the living room rug to the edge of the couch or end table and goes exploring for all the hidden treasures there so that he can, like babies love to do, stick whatever he can find in his mouth.

I do my best to keep the floor clean. But there’s a big difference between “we live here” clean and “theres a crawling baby here” clean. So, now we have to play “What’s in Your Mouth?” from time to time, and he’s the Grand Champion of it. And I am his arch nemesis… and now he’s got two teeth, so it’s kinda hazardous.

He’s also quite the escape artist. One good thing about a small baby — when you put them somewhere and step away, they’re pretty much where you left them when you come back.

Not so with a crawler (even a wounded soldier). You set them down, go to get the diapers and the wipes, you come back and… where’s the baby?

I’ll tell you where he is. He has breached the perimeter and is going straight for the half-a-Dorito your daughter just left in the floor under the coffee table, thinking the dogs would just eat it…sigh.

It’s only going to escalate once this kid starts walking…