Well, after about 8 months, it has finally happened. Baby MB has learned to crawl. Well…sort of crawl. Rather than the traditional crawl, he has opted to do the worm whenever the urge to move strikes him. (Which is often.)

Since he is not the first of his baby buddies to crawl, I began baby proofing the house early. I put up some baby gates, changed the outlet covers and did a sweep of the house for dangerous objects. I felt prepared.

As usual, I was wrong. Here are some things I was not prepared for when the baby started crawling:

That he would refuse to stay still ever again.

He is constantly squirming, kicking and crawling around the house. He refuses to sit and play with anything for more than 57 seconds. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to make dinner while attempting to  prevent the baby from eating dog kibble. (Which he did yesterday. Don’t worry, he didn’t actually get to eat it, much to the dog’s relief. Labs do NOT share food.)

Remember when I wrote about things the baby does while breastfeeding? Well, that’s gotten even more fun since the crawling started. He refuses to eat without his foot on my windpipe and his hands on my face. His favourite lately is to stick his finger as far up my nose as it will go and scratch the inside of my nostrils. They were not itchy, but thanks…

Don’t even get me started on changing diapers lately! Whatever distraction I throw at him, the baby manages to flip over onto his tummy and try to crawl away every diaper change. Since he learned to crawl, diaper changing is like wrestling a tiny, poop-covered acrobat.

My floors are actually way more disgusting than I thought

Okay, this is probably not a surprise to anyone who has been to my house. Since Baby MB does not lift his tummy off the floor during his epic worm crawl, he unwittingly becomes a human swiffer. Yesterday he wore white overalls. This was a mistake. Not because the outfit got dirty – I’ve given up caring about stained clothing – but because I wanted to remain in denial about the state of the floors.

The dog was not ready either.

Poor, poor Hazel. We got back from our trip and she was suddenly being chased around the house by a break dancing baby. As the baby caught up to her and began trying to eat her tail, my wonderfully patient dog gave me a look that said, “Why does it move now?? When does it go to bed?” Poor, poor Hazel.

He now hates all his toys.

Why sit still and play with toys, when he can explore the living room instead? He has lost interest in his Jolly Jumper. Since he started crawling, he is irresistibly drawn to the piano pedals, DVDs, my husband’s rubber boots and the dog’s water dish. He also loves ripping apart his foam tiles and carrying them around the house. Yesterday he spent 15 minutes happily smacking a bag of toilet paper while ignoring all his toys. He then wormed his way into the kitchen where he splashed in the dog’s water dish before dumping all the water on the dog’s paw and then sitting in the puddle and laughing. At least the kitchen floors will be cleaner though, right?

Boy, oh boy. I’m already exhausted and he hasn’t even attempted to walk yet. When is nap time again?

Featured Photo credit: ThomasLife via VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND