Diary of a Father

Teething, Walking, Climbing = TODDLERS!!

Rin stuffed the teething ring in his mouth on the floor. Yukio wobbled on his hands and knees still learning to get the hang of crawling. Finally able to scoot himself off the blanket on the floor he began getting himself into trouble.

"Hey, don't put that in your mouth!" Shiro came to his rescue quickly taking away a pen cap. He replaced it with another gel filled ring to satisfy the need to chew on things. But Yukio wasn't interested and left it on the floor crawling somewhere else. The lamp on the desk suddenly was dragged nearing the edge. "No no no!!" Shiro rushed over to grab the lamp and work the cord out from Yukio's hands. Seeing him run around after his brother Rin thought it looked like fun and lost interest in the now drool covered ring and began finding things he could get into.

"Rin don't eat the shoes!" Shiro now rushed over to him pulling away his boots and setting them up to a higher shelf only to turn around and found Yukio in the bottom of the pantry ready to stick an onion in his mouth. "Don't eat that, you won't like it, trust me." He grabbed the onion picking him up along with Rin now both on either side of his hip, "wow, this place isn't 'baby proof' at all."
Thus led to a meeting about proofing the house so that the two boys would be able to explore their surroundings with out getting hurt. First the electrical plugs not being used were to be covered up to prevent them sticking their fingers or objects inside the sockets. Long wires of lamps, t.vs and other appliances were to be raveled and put up high out of toddler distance when not in use or taped securely to the floor. In turn the floors as well should be clear of any pen caps and other objects that would be harmful to them, and a little gate was put in place to keep the children out of the kitchen while cooking and heavy traffic was in the room. Finally after the montage of baby proofing was all done Shiro was able to rest on the couch and read a manga while peeking up from the book momentarily to give the boys a quick check, but all was safe and out of their mouth.

That was until, the crawling soon turned into walking!!

"Shiro! Shiro look at Rin!" He was tapped on his arm and looked over to see Rin wobbling on his feet holding on to one of the chairs in the dinning room.
"Oh lord he's going to start walking..." He stated, excited yet dreadful. The fact that they still wanted to put everything in sight in their mouth didn't change as he began to tell them stories while in the kitchen cooking lunches. Rin and Yukio would seem to be attentively listing while their mouths attached to the gate blocking them from the kitchen. The wood frame of the gate started to get nicks in the finish where the toddlers teeth began growing in and able to chew on things. So far they were only able to walk while holding on to things such as the chairs or gate but when they wanted to get somewhere quickly they dropped to their hands and knees and took off like crawling a race.

Shiro would sit on the blanket with them and make them squeal with laughter tickling their tummies and singing them songs, counting their toes and teaching them to clap which was very entertaining to them at the time. One day while holding Rin in his lap telling a story about a hungry alligator and mischievous teasing monkeys in a tree, Rin was more intrigued by the odd object on Shiro's face that reflected the light if it hit a certain angle. Unable to hold back his curiosity Shiro's glasses were swiftly snatched off his face and waved about in Rin's hands babbling about and held onto the arm of the spectacles with all his might so that Shiro's hands trying to gently work the glasses out of his grip sure had quite a hard time.

"You really got ahold of that." Shiro grumbled still trying to get them back. Rin popped the tip of the arm in his mouth to see if it was anything to eat. His small teeth just breaking the surface of the gums nibbled and gnawed all that they could before his tongue slid across the lenses getting foggy from his breath. "Riiiin!!" Shiro cried working harder to get back his glasses. Finally Rin let his grip slip on the arm of the glasses his curiosity settled that what ever those things were, didn't taste good at all.
"Eeeww..." Shiro held the dripping glasses viewing the smudged lenses in the light and set the kids down to clean them off.