Breakdown in the House of Danger

This house is a minefield. It is NOT, I repeat, NOT baby-friendly. If we were looking again for a rental. I would not choose this house. I would use my big-girl brain and say, "Tile, marble, lots of steps, fireplaces? Naw....sounds like a lot of sharp corners and hard surfaces. Not a place for a baby. Let's move on babe," I would say to my lover. He would laugh and smile at me knowingly, and we would drive as fast as we could away into the San Diego sunset without another thought.

Instead, our pre-baby selves couldn't see these things, and only saw 'nice big tub, large windows, lots of light.' We put our deposit down based on "good vibes." Granted, I love this house, its windows, its vibes, being surrounded by hills and pretty landscape. I've painted it and moved furniture around to make it mine ours. But lately, I want to move into a two-bedroom apartment made out of foam. I want it to be furnished with inflatable coffee tables. I want the drawers and the cupboards to be fashioned out of bubble wrap.

Dax is insane. My precious little sweetie pie is officially the most active little 11-month-old on the entire planet. He has no sense of caution. He goes for things with all his might, as fast as he can, determined, without care for the fact that he has not the balance nor the strength yet to support his will. This causes lots of little scrapes, and owies, and oh my god, that cry! In playgroups, well-meaning mamas have observed that Dax is:
     "very physical."
     "really adventurous."
     "All-Boy."
     "Quite a handful."

Dax runcrawling in play area

Not only does he love to runcrawl all over the hard kitchen tile, it leaves his little baby knees red and tender. Yet he refuses to be deterred. Try to stop him, and he'll SCREAM bloody murder and kick his legs as if to say, "Mooommmmmm, I want to GOOOOOOO there PLZZZZ don't get in my wayyyyy!!!! So I let him back down again and figure if his knees really hurt, he wouldn't runcrawl  on the tile right?!

And he WANTS. Like really really really WANTS things. For example, I am getting ready and have to do something simple like brush my hair, and Dax sees this from afar and sprintcrawls to me with a crazed look of determination indicating that he would like to see that brush RIGHT NOW!!! And then he starts to claw at my knee, and pull himself up, whine, and pound incessantly on my thigh.

As he starts to cry, I'm wishing my hair wasn't so darn long and I'm thinking "I can't just give this kid everything he whines about." So I hide the comb, and when I do, he sees where I put it and precedes to full on break down into a mental case on the floor. And my hair still isn't brushed. And it's not even noon yet.

This continues all day long for absolutely everything I touch. Of course, sometimes I just give him the things he's aching for because it's easier, and they're safe so whatever. And sometimes I don't. And I never really know if what I'm doing is the right thing or the wrong thing and I think about that all day.

Dax with brush

What a willful child. Not sure where he got that from.

The other day, the worst thing happened and it scared me so bad that yesterday I was having little mini-panic attacks. Dax was playing in a drawer--the designated "safe drawer"--that I've left open so that he can explore, but removed all dangerous things. So there he was standing next to the drawer and then he took a step towards me, but lost his balance (because he forgot that he does not yet know how to walk at all). And he fell. Face forward. Onto the corner of the drawer. The right side of his face.  The tender bone by his eye. Hit the corner of that drawer so hard. On impact, it made my entire body ZAP with pain.

After his face hit, he fell to the floor and screamed. Louder than I've ever heard him scream. He hit that drawer right on the corner with his face. Harder than I've ever seen him hit anything. And oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my f**king gosh. Scoop up the boy and try to calm down that SCREAM. He hurt so bad he was kicking me because he didn't know what else to do. It took atleast 10 minutes before it passed.

I called everybody and sent pictures and shook with tears & guilt, while everyone assured me these things will happen. He got a nice big shiner on his eye and I'm pretty sure passerbyers are calling CPS on me.

Now the whole house looks like DANGER to me. Everything, even the walls, that are just sitting there. My little baby boy loves to climb things and throw himself into things and fall down on sharp things and it's freaking me out.

Dax's first shiner

I'm not quite sure how my mom did it. I broke everything as a kid--my leg, my collar bone (both of them on separate occasions), and my teeth (more than a few times I broke my face on steel handlebars and hills of frozen ice). My bro and sis? Sustained almost no injuries, and definitely no broken bones. Did my son inherit my risky, broken-bone prone playstyle? So far, it sure seems so...sigh...it's gunna be a long road to college.