Ears Like a Bat

So this week the Mother of the Gremlin and I have been eagerly awaiting the Thomas Talking Railway Station (and by eagerly, I mean we've been wondering how long it would take us to injure ourselves or him after hearing the same Thomas phrase repeated 50 million times) that I foolishly purchased off woot.com because I'm an impulse buyer for almost anything they have.

Anyway, Grandma came up this week, so the Gremlin was ecstatic right up until we put him to bed. Once we finally got the little darling down (and I promise, I didn't use duct tape. This time), we were showing Grandma the recent purchase. Well, as any curious person would, she pushed THE BIG RED LEVER.


THE BIG RED LEVER inevitably kicks off a display of lights and sounds that will become indelibly imprinted on your brain over the next few days, and is set to a specific frequency that not only causes children to become addicted, but is also capable of causing migraine-level pain in adults. The Talking Railway Station is no different, with Sir Toppam Hat coming out and talking to the person who will be flayed for touching THE BIG RED LEVER.

A few minutes after we'd looked at it (and the two talking trains that came with it - Molly and Billy, of which we already have 2), we heard the Gremlin up and about. Going into see why he couldn't sleep, the Gremlin greeted us before we even got to his bed.

"I want to play with the train."
"Uh, what train, buddy?"
"The Thomas train you and Mommy and Grandma were playing with."
"Buddy, you need to go to sleep. It's bed time now." Not being able to argue this, the Gremlin laid down, but had one last shot to get in.
"You think I don't know, but I do. I know."

He had heard half a second of one little child's-toy speaker across the entire house while the TV was on, and knew it was a Thomas Train.

Mountaineer or Evil Genius

And at 8 months old, the real trouble begins. I remember being a child and scaling everything I could. Any tree I could reach, rocks, hills, piles of gravel - they were my own personal jungle gym. I think my son has taken after me.

His grandmother offered a few weeks ago, I believe for the last time, to babysit the Gremlin. I traveled to work looking forward to returning to a quiet apartment, and paid the cost. At 9am I was interrupted from my daily duties by a call from the Mother of the Gremlin.

"My mom just called. He has removed all her doorjambs."
"What doorjambs? There aren't any on the first floor." (Where his Pack 'N Play was, and thus I foolishly believed him to be constrained to.)
"Oh, yeah, he took them off all the jambs on the second floor."
"Your mom left him up there without watching him?!"
"Oh, yeah, he learned how to climb stairs."

I sighed. It was only a matter of time. I was hoping he didn't learn that one for a while (we don't have stairs in our condo), but apparently his trips to the playground have been paying off for him.

"She said she put him in the living room, and went to go get his bottle ready. She couldn't see him because of the couch, but apparently when she turned away, he had gone through the door, down the hall, and up the stairs. She looked for him all over downstairs, and apparently that gave him time to pull all the doorjambs off the walls upstairs."

I attempted to console her, and went back to work, thinking that the trouble for the day was over - and hopefully the trouble for the week. Sadly, I was mistaken when not even two hours later I received another call.

"I'm not going to be home tonight."
"Okay, why not?"
"I'm going to my parent's."
"Okay, is everything alright?"
"He scaled the china cabinet. My mom found him on the counter area neatly stacking all the china dishes he was able to reach."

And this is before he can even take 15 steps without falling over...