Holy little stinkin’ Houdini, Batman! Zachary (aka the “Monkey”) is living up to his nickname. Our dexterous, agile wall-scaling, head-sticking-(and stucking)-through-stair-banister, jumping-into-bathtubs-fulling-clothed CHILD is now scaling up and out of his crib in three seconds flat. I guess I should be surprised that it’s taken him 21 months to figure out how to shimmy himself out. I miss the semi-freedom of the last 21 months already. I miss the days of being able to keep at least one of my monkey-offspring in legal-baby/child-captivity devices. It was nice while it lasted.

Last night after time-and-time-again of taking Zach back to his room, I finally decided to sit in the chair to a.) watch the magic in action and b.) return him to the crib every time he got out. I watched as Zach swung his leg WAY up over the side of the crib and lower himself to the floor with the stealthy agility of a cat burglar. He crept-scurried across the floor to the door where he stood twisting and rattling the handle until achieving victory. The door swung open. Zach looked back and flashed the biggest and most valiant smile I’ve ever seen. Dimples flashing at me in the dark, he paused, the thought bubble above his head reading, “Freedom, ahh sweet freedom. Let me just revel in this for a moment. Ha! Even more fun is the fact that, now if I run down the hall, she’s totally going to chase after me, and that’s just HILARIOUS! Muahh-ahhh-ahhh! [evil baby laugh] I hold all the power.”

This forces Mommy Me to face two very sad and difficult realities: a.) my baby is done with the crib (that I planned on keeping him in until he was 13…or 3 whichever came first) and b.) my baby can wander the house at night getting into all sorts of mayhem and keeping the household sleepless for…years. Crap.

Always brimming with support and advice, my friend Molly – who, by the way, I adore – suggested that I try the playard/porta-crib. A very ingenious idea, thought I. Zach laughed and spat in my face at this idea (figuratively though sometimes literally). He escaped the “play pen” (the non-P.C. term) in a little under a minute.

My afternoon now has a new plan: empty Zach’s room of all dangerous, life-threatening things and furniture to turn his room into his new “crib.” He’ll be sleeping on the floor on the crib mattress until we get around to buying him a real bed this weekend. Until he gets over the excitement, I will stumble after him at night as he explores his free reign – bumping off the walls with fatigue, mind you. (That’s me doing the bumping…he never tires. Ever).