These days crawling doesn't seem so bad

My daughter started crawling a couple weeks ago.

This means a couple of things.

First off, our house looks like we are preparing for a flood. Our shelves are stripped of all items at the very bottom. Anything within grabbing reach has sought higher ground. She likes to pull herself up on to our furniture, then grab something, preferably fragile, and swing back it back and forth with one hand as she holds on with the other hand – think Fay Wray and King Kong on the Empire State Building.

And, after my daughter gets through strewing her toys around the house, it looks like the flood has already come and looters have rummaged through in an effort to find any valuables they can pawn.

But crawling also means we are quickly approaching another important phase – toddlerism. I’m not sure I can, grammatically, put an ism on the end of that word. It almost sounds like something you go to a weekly group meeting for.

“I’m Stan and I have a toddler.”

“Hi, Stan.”

Toddler is Greek for “two-legged terror.” I’m new to this but I’ve heard it can include anything from shaving the dog to using permanent marker on the car door. I’ll be sure to provide the Beagle a comb.

But it is also a time to be amazed. I am stunned by the different paces my daughter and I live our lives. When I’m usually ready to sit down, she’s ready to crawl away or remove the DVD player from the entertainment center.

When I’m looking for the last couple minutes of sleep in the morning, she’s smacking me in the face.

Then at night, she’s sleeping so still in her bed. Usually it’s too still and she gets an obligatory body shake. It’s amazing to see this ball of energy completely at peace. Because I know the next morning, she’ll be re-energized and raring to go.

The only similarity we share is that I occasionally crawl to the shower.

She’s so eager to go, ready to taste every bit of life, fuzzy shreds of carpet not excluded. And I spend most of my life trying to find a way to slow down.

That’s when I catch myself envying her. I can’t even remember now when life had such simple rules – eat, play with my toys, sleep, repeat as needed. Not a care in the world, except when she has to get her face washed and her pajamas on for the night. Then we get a little glimpse of that temper that I can only guess means a bedroom door will have to be temporarily removed from its hinges somewhere down the road.

I’m a lost cause – caught up in bills, work and everything in between. I don’t know where I lost it, the ability to just play, to be free. It was probably somewhere between getting my first job and determining I wanted big things like cars and a house. Will I ever get it back? Probably not.

Will I protect it for her as long as I can?

You bet.