where did he go?

My son is a complete and total maniac. I don't know when this happened. Last I checked he was a sweet smiley cuddly baby. He's still smiley, but he's also everywhere at once, fast fast fast, completely suspended while trying to climb the pack-n-play, the refrigerator, the dining room table. He wants me (Mitch, you, whomever) to hold his hands so he can walk 6 times around our first floor circuit--family room to office to hallway to living room to dining room to kitchen and back to family room. If your back is aching by the 4th time around and you try to let go of his hands, he sits down hard on the floor and flaps his arms and screams this growl of a scream. He growls a lot, in fact--a new sound, the angry sound.

Furthermore, in keeping with making me nuts, he is obsessed with paper. And plastic. Wants to put anything (everything) paper or plastic in his mouth. I guess I had nothing more to do than watch Frances every time she twitched when she was this age, but I don't remember digging paper so often out of her mouth. I suppose I also had the energy and time to keep the house straighter, not to mention the toddler I didn't have then who scatters around paper after coloring w/ markers. Every time Frances takes the plastic off the straw for the juice box I worry that a piece will end up on the floor and become a choking hazard. I have fear of choking hysteria.

In music class today my friend Wendy, who has a boy about 6 months older than Frances and a girl a week older than Clark, leaned over and said, "It seems like it's gotten a lot harder lately, do you think?" I do I do. I think as soon as Clark learns to walk it will be better. As soon as he doesn't need me to help him, as soon as he can practice on his own, as soon as we can all walk on our feet to the car rather than my heaving him up onto my hip (he's really heavy), it will be better. I sure hope so.