One Little Monkey Jumping On The Bed

Due to his sharp increase in speed and mobility, I feel that Max is no longer safe napping in our bed by himself. He can easily right himself now, and has no fear of gravity whatsoever. So, when napping in the crib doesn't work (which is a lot of the time -- Max is not a crib-dweller by nature), I have taken to putting him down for naps on an extra futon mattress on the floor in his bedroom. This has worked out great -- I can still snuggle with him while he goes to sleep, he has room to stretch out, he doesn't get that caged-in feeling, and there is a less-than-one-inch drop should he decide to roll over and start crawling. In spite of all these reassuring facts, however, Max still managed to scare me yesterday. I put him down on the mattress, nursed him for awhile, sang to him and rubbed his back, and left him, peacefully sleeping.

I went in to check on him about half and hour later, and he looked quite comfortable, and quite deeply asleep. Ian calls this sleeping position "starfish style", and apparently feels that Max has inherited it, and its side-effect of taking up the most possible bed space, from his mother.

About ten minutes after checking on Max, I started hearing this noise coming from the baby monitor. It wasn't a cry, it wasn't a bang or a giggle, and it was quiet enough that I almost passed it off as white noise from the monitor itself. Just to be sure, however, I went to peek in. At first, I didn't see Max at all -- he wasn't in the middle of the mattress, where I had left him. After one icy stab of panic, however, I caught sight of Max, gleefully looking at me over his shoulder while standing in bed. I had apparently interrupted him in the middle of trying to pry the letters (they spell M-A-X) off of his toy chest and eat them. It just goes to show that a determined child can make mischief anywhere.