A whole new era (of necessary watchfulness)

Streams of sadness or no streams of sadness, life does not stop for babies.  I just thought I should let you know a little about Leaf's busy day.

It's only the early afternoon, and already the Leaf Baby has:

Played in YaYa's potty, after she peed without telling me and then left the door open.

Stuck his finger in the rat cage and received a little nibble which I couldn't see but still made him cry. (I think this means he's going to turn into a Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtle or something.)

Opened a bag of barley and spilled the whole thing over the floor, after which he attempted to eat it-the raw barley that is, which set off a chain reaction of Barnum and Bailey-worthy events when the kids decided to "help" me clean it up, and I let them, only to notice Kid A swishing the barley into the living room (Space? How do you say that with an open plan?) with the broom and YaYa dumping the barley back out of the dustpan, at which point I took over, causing YaYa to dissolve into tears on my foot while Leaf was still trying to shove raw barley into his mouth, crying, because he didn't like the way it tasted.

Dumped a whole cup of water on his face which was incredibly shocking to him. YaYa had left her cup of water on the edge of the table and Leaf is now the exact height that he needs to be to pull something like a cup of water towards himself and dump it on his own face, causing himself to sputter and then burst into tears.

Took his first steps in succession. He's taken one step before, but today I sat down with him and practised and he found, to his delight, that he could walk to me.