Crazed Crawler I: Reign of terror

We're terribly sorry. We really are.

Being journalists at heart, we've tried to keep this blog current, so readers can stay abreast of developments with Sonny. But we've just failed miserably. Not three days ago (click here), we reported on how the little fella's preferred method of moving around was a rather shambolic half-roll, half-crawl combo that was effective but less than pretty. The problem is, our fingers were still throbbing from the furious typing that produced that post when everything suddenly changed.

All at once, Sonny finally mastered the full art of infant crawling. There was no slow progression ala a stereotypical martial-arts movie, in which he would have slowly developed from novice, to apprentice crawler, to half-way competent, to adept, and so forth. Instead, it was a case of him being hardly able to string together a couple of steps one day, then - and we do not exaggerate the suddenness of this - the next, the right blend of foot, leg, chest and arm strength being mastered to a 'd'. There he was scuttling along as though he'd been doing it all his life, with a smooth technique and rapid clip that left us speechless.

It didn't take long before his new mastery was yoked to a burning curiosity that had him barging into chairs in our hall, slurping at the dirty pedals of our piano and advancing with zero discretion towards razor-sharp table edges. Each night, Mum was run ragged picking the little monster up and redepositing him on the mattress, only to have him zip off again with a Red Indian war yell.

Today, Sonny was brought over to Mum's parents' pad for the first time - and promptly wore out, if not his welcome, then certainly his grandparents. The initial response from the two senior citizens was a very warm one: They couldn't wait for Sonny to demonstrate his new crawling competence, and dangled various objects to try and entice him into action. Mum and Pa, seeing an opening, absented themselves for a mere 45 minutes to make a quick visit to the nearby library. By the time we returned, Sonny's grandsires were all but gasping with exhaustion, tuckered out from trying to keep the young 'un from bouncing off the walls as he roamed at will.

You might, perceptively, opine that it all has to end in tears. And you'd be right. This crazed crawling monster simply had to be brought under control before a major accident happened. In tomorrow's post, we'll reveal how we tamed the beast... and at what piteous cost.