Just Another Ordinary Miracle: Perseverance

We're catching up with Toronto life after our week in the woods. We spent a few days babyproofing and rearranging our living/family room so that Zain has more room to roam, and we can let him roam without hovering over him fearing his demise. He now has access to the whole first floor. We're having a little trouble finding baby gates that fit our narrow stairs (thank you, 100-year-old house). We got a good one that blocks the top of the basement stairs, but our temporary solution to blocking the stairs to the upstairs is to shove his toy bin there when he's wandering around. It works. Luckily, he hasn't shown much interest in stairs yet. He's mainly interested in crawling around, pulling to stand on whatever's available, and climbing over anything that's in his way on the way there.

I think he also has a future as a rock climber. I've started rating his climbs. The other day he was working on a difficult 5.8 pitch, where his feet were under a table and he was pulling himself up by his fingertips. One of his other favorite things to do right now is to crawl through the tunnel between our armchair and its ottoman - no matter how narrow the gap is or what else is in the gap, including someone's legs or a large balloon. He'll grunt and groan and wiggle and he won't give up until he's through. I'm sure this quality of perseverance will serve him well in the future but all we can see is toddlerhood. :-)

Some pictures from the last couple weeks: