it's all for you

Gabe is really motoring around these days. Up until last week, he had this elaborate frog crawl worked out. He basically looked like he was doing the breast stroke on land. He'd lift himself up onto all fours, belly off the ground, and then while bending his legs outward, would launch himself forward and land (hard) on his chest and belly. Somehow, he'd always perfectly time it so that he'd have an extra second to keep his hands under his chest and lift his head up, so that he didn't smash his face into the floor. It was scary to watch because you were convinced that at any moment his chin would slam into the ground and we'd be taking a trip to the emergency room, but strangely effective. He got pretty fast and could make it across the living room, through the front hall, across the dining room and into the kitchen, in the time it took me to run to the bathroom. Trust me, he was quick.

We spent the last couple of weeks with his grandparents in California, though, and his grandparents were oddly obsessed with eliminating his unusual crawling behavior. My mother would walk above him, hunched over, holding him up under his chest and trying to get him to crawl like a traditional baby. She'd also crawl alongside him, DEMONSTRATING, and then crawl behind him forcing his little knees to stay in the proper line of motion. This is a woman who hasn't done a lick of exercise in a couple of decades, so for her to be crawling on hands and knees beside Gabriel, meant true dedication. Her grandson would crawl appropriately, damn it, if it was the last thing she did.

I ignored her the first week, because it seemed hopeless to me. Josh and I rather love his unique crawl, and he'd been crawling like that for a month and a half, and the pediatrician assured me that this was his form of crawling, one amongst maybe 25 accepted forms of crawling. Sadly, though, one day last week, my mom was at work while Gabe and I played around at their house, and he began imitating her proper crawling motions as he chased after a ball I'd thrown. He still reverted to his frog moves when he was in a hurry, but as the days pass, he crawls less and less like the little frog we've come to love, and more and more like a real baby. This morning, I didn't even see the frog crawl at all. I'm the tiniest bit sad about it, to tell you the truth.

Even though he's becoming more proficient in the crawling department, he is definitely still a reckless little bugger. He'll launch himself off of the couch or try to throw himself out of our arms, often with no warning. The other day, I ran into the office with my morning coffee to log onto the Internet, leaving Gabe on the living room floor. It took me 3 or 4 minutes to turn the computer on, sync up with our wireless network and bring up my email. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement, and turned just in time to see Gabe crawling head first down the step between the living room and the office. I pushed off of the chair to grab him before he flipped himself over. I was able to grab his arms and stop him from his slow motion tumble, and behind me I heard the sound of liquid hitting the floor. My stomach clenched as I made the connection of what had just happened behind me. I sat Gabe up and turned to see a full cup of coffee pouring out of the laptop's keyboard and off of the desk onto the floor. A full, large, hot mug of coffee. As I watched, the laptop made a squeal and a hiss before shutting down.

I lifted the laptop up as coffee poured out of the keyboard, and put it down onto a towel upside down to let the liquid drain out. I called Dell so that I could have my nervous breakdown with a professional on the phone, and they talked me through disconnecting the hard drive and all of the removable pieces, and drying it off as best I could.

I was upset about the computer, but what was really pushing me over the edge was the thought that ALL of Gabe's pictures are on that computer. And of course, OF COURSE, I've only backed it up through April. I know, I'm an idiot. The computer is off in the land of technical assistance right now, and the verdict is out on whether it can be repaired. The hard drive is safe and sound with me, and once we get the computer back, I'll be able to connect the hard drive back into the rest of the computer and we'll see whether the computer will live to see another day.

I'm able to sleep these days, because at least I was able to pull the pictures off of the hard drive and back them up. Thank goodness. I couldn't even imagine the alternative, so I walked around in denial for a few days until we were able to confirm that the pictures hadn't been fried.

I do these things as a reminder to all of you to BACK UP YOUR COMPUTERS. Probably you all already do that, because you're smarter than I am, but I like to think of myself as generous like that. I do stupid things so that you don't have to. You can thank me later.