The Nom Stage

The experts may call it teething, but I prefer to call it the nom stage. Jack is right in the thick of that stage of development where everything that he can grab goes into his mouth.  He'll mash his little gums onto things with such great glee and gusto, sometimes making these little "mmm" noises like a hungry man at a tasty buffet.

I present to you a photo of Jack, gums deep in the nom stage:

The nom stage has made me acutely aware of a few things:

1. I tend to drop things. A lot. Small, grabable and nommable things like coins and pens. After a shirt pocket vomited coins into Jack's bed, I realized that I really need to watch that.  Coins are definitely nomable and just the right size to cause a scary problem.

2. There are lots of things around my house that are small and grabable to a nonmobile baby. Once I have a mobile baby, the house is going to have to go on lockdown.

I guess the nom stage is great training for babyproofing.  God knows I'll need that.  As some friends have pointed out, our house sort of resembles the House on the Rock when it comes to decor, so there is an awful lot for little hands (and mouths) to get in trouble with.  Maybe I'll just need to invest in tarps to cover absolutely everything for the next eighteen months or so.

A side effect of the nom stage is the fact that Jack's fingers are now always wet.  That means I get lots of wet hugs, wet grabs, little wet handprints on my clothing.  That also means that I have to be near fanatical about keeping his hands clean, as for some reason whenever strangers feel compelled to touch my baby, they want to shake his hand, or even worse: kiss his hands.  (Why is that?  Anyone?)  While I don't exactly douse him with Lysol after every stranger handshake, I do keep wipes handy for that purpose because without fail those little fingers go right into his mouth any chance he gets.

Nom nom nom.