1. a helium balloon attached to a long ribbon
2. an old wash cloth that his father keeps around the computer for reasons we probably don't want to discover
3. and the bottom of the bookshelf.

Upstairs he's forever crawling onto the brick hearth to get at the gas fireplace's reflective glass surface (this morning he ate some crumbs of loose masonry. That'll be a pleasant diaper.). In the bathroom he wiggles behind the toilet & sucks on the flow knob. This morning I taped his journey behind the toilet (and his subsequent extraction by James). Halfway through you can hear me screech, "are you sucking on that knob?! Oh Christ! I gotta stop this tape!" There's something to show his first date.

I know that I should be more like those moms you see at the drugstore, the ones who have a total flaming freak-out if their child dares to touch a fingertip to a shelf. I know I should be keeping him in totally controlled environments or else making it my business to periodically shriek "dirty!!" "dangerous!!" and "NNNOOOOO!!!!" as I swoop down and separate him from the offending item of real world paraphernalia. Unfortunately for Blake, I'm just too fascinated by his determined exploration of the floor-level world. He's Alexander Cabot in a froggie onesie.