#Microblog Mondays: It's almost like having a puppy...


Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

Olivia is in what I call the "Puppy Dog" phase. Let me explain.

She's been into picking anything up off the floor, carpet lint, dog hair... questionable crumbs.... and sticking it into her mouth to eat. Sometimes she will look around for me to see if I'm watching her before frantically shoveling whatever disgusting thing she found into her mouth. Bonus points if she succeeds in actually swallowing it since, well, have you ever tried to pry open the mouth out of an unwilling baby to remove something? Do you realize how many nooks and crevices are in there?

I swear I can't walk away from her for a second without coming back to find her chewing thoughtfully like a cow chews cud. It's gross.

Every day I discover more and more things to baby proof and prevent, but every day she bests me.


Keep her away from the dog food so she can't choke? No problem.
Keep device cords up out of her reach so she doesn't electrocute herself? Check.
Break food up into little pieces so they are easier to chew, and to throw on the floor? Double Check.


You get where I'm coming from. But seriously. I thought I kept relatively clean floors. At least since Olivia started crawling. Before that I have let slide all the dust bunnies on the floor. Ok fine, maybe they were more like dust German Shepherds, but still, I'm so much more conscious of that now and make sure to fully sweep and vacuum at least once a week. Apparently that's not good enough. In my defense, I can't quite figure out the mode on our vacuum that will make the bristles dig deeper into the carpet to pick up more crap Olivia can stick in her mouth. 
(I could read the instructions on the vacuum, but I can't find them. Perhaps Olivia ate them? Like she tries to eat everything else, I'm sure she could shove an entire owners manual into her mouth.)


In related news, her crib has also been feeling her puppy tenancies. After making a shocking discovery that she has been not just gnawing, but literally chewing pieces off her crib (and probably swallowing them) when she's in there for naps and early mornings, Chris and I looked into crib rail protectors. After refusing to spend the $70 for the gummy ones, we ordered these cloth ones that tie off Amazon. Now maybe the gummy ones wouldn't have stretched the length of the crib either, but it was looking like a giant waste of money. She learned to push them back, exposing the tasty underbelly of the crib, and proceeded to gnaw her way into blissful oblivion. Gross. All those swallowed splinters couldn't be good for her.

Mama, can I haz some more tasty crib splinters?
It was Chris who had the bright idea to tie flour sack cloths to both corners, making it virtually impossible to untie with tiny baby fingers. Even when they are attached to an increasingly smart baby.

Since then, we've had no more issues. She tries though. I'll watch her on the monitor, her face smashed into the crib rail, desperately gnawing on the four sacks. To no avail.

And boom goes the dynamite.
  
You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts by clicking here.

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