Ahh, vacations (redux)

After a long weekend, it felt almost like we took another vacation (though we didn't go anywhere this time).

The weekend was spent unproductively, for a change. Friday was filled with glorious nothingness - I played golf in the morning, and then the three of us walked into town for a light lunch and a trip to the new Peabody Essex Museum. Wow. The new wing is spectacular. Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to visit Yin Yu Tang - we'll have to do that on another visit. Saturday's nothing was interrupted by a trip to Beverly for a 3rd birthday party for one of our friends' son. After we went home, I went grocery shopping for the first time in weeks.

Then Sunday was a lazy day on which we slept in, did a couple of errands, then went to a graduation party in Manchester By-The-Sea. Manchester has a terrific harbor, and was one of the towns we considered when house-hunting this past winter.

David spent the wekend crawling around and climbing stairs. He now stands for about five seconds at a time - usually without realizing it. An interesting thing about his falls now is that he doesn't usually topple over sideways anymore (unless he's really tired). Now he falls straight back and lands on his butt, then he pops right back up. Kind of like sitting abruptly. he also cruises at a walking pace, just using a hand or two to steady himself as he goes.

This week's new safety innovation for us was toilet seat locks - but they kinda suck. I have to install a cabinet lock on our bathroom vanity tonight. We've been avoiding as much childproofing as possible because we figure it hurts the appearance in the sales process (no buyer yet), we just do it on an as-needed basis and steer him away from trouble spots with a firm "no". It usually works. We've taken care of the electric sockets, the dangerous cabinets downstairs, the toilet seats, and all the areas that need to be gated (the nerd room, the top of the stairs, the bottom of the stairs, and the doorway to the cellar stairs). We've also moved a lot of the fragile things out of the way. So far, he's caused no critical damage to any objects or to himself, so it seems to be working.

Jane will be starting mother/toddler swimming lessons with him tomorrow morning at the Salem town pool - it's over at Forest River Park near our house.