Will Owl make it to adulthood?

Owl turned one last Saturday. He has also entered into the typical 12 month old assertion of independence alternating with separation anxiety, so he is driving me up the wall at the moment.

What is really worrying me though, is his personality's particular combination of cleverness, ingenuity, sneakiness and sense of adventure. Added to being no 2 kid, this means I am constantly just in the nick of time (or not) to save him from some kind of hair-raising misadventure. Last week, I was staying at my parent's place looking after my 89 year old grandmother (who lives behind them) while they were away. Owl got into scary situations twice while at her house. Probably because with my grandmother and 2 kids, it was really like looking after 3 kids, in a house that did not cater for kids, and so my attention was even more diverted. Owl managed to :1) within a minute of inattention , because both Sparky and grandmother were talking at me, get into her laundry, take out all the cleaning products left on a ground level open shelf, throw them around so some leaked out. I got to him BEFORE he drank any (phew!)
2) My grandmother had made herself a tea without milk and left it in the middle of the kitchen bench. I was standing in the kitchen supervising the use of the water fountain by Sparky and my grandmother (don't ask!), holding Owl. I wasn't even right next to the bench, and the tea was about a body length from him. But seeing his opportunity to try one of these things he is never allowed to touch, he suddenly dove out of my arms across the bench to put his fingers in the tea. I caught him and pulled out his fingers, and ran them under water for 10 mins. No lasting damage.

Then tonight, as I was reading Sparky a story in his bedroom while Owl played on the floor, he climbed up on a plastic box, pulled open a drawer in a mini set of drawers Sparky has, and tried to use that as a step to climb up to the top of the drawers. I took him down and put him elsewhere in the room, and continued the story. As soon as I averted my eyes to read the book, he dashed back to it, and started climbing again, and of course the drawer couldn't support him and he fell and scratched inside his mouth a little with his fingernail. I was impressed by his understanding of the step principle, but wished he had also worked out the necessity for stability! As Pope said "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring". Too clever for his own good - but completely lacking in caution! arrgghh! does anyone else have a little adventuresome one?

window safety

my cousin's boy -4 yearsold -fell out of a 2 storey window on sunday. on to concrete. he is miraculously alive and not paralysed, though with a fracture in his neck - waiting to find out what this means. please pray.

but also , please be aware of window safety in your home. kids can be expected to do the unexpected.