Is Sadie in Jail?!?!

Sadie isn't sure how she feels about her play pen.  It seemed like a good idea in the beginning.  She can practice standing up in it and she realized very early on that if she lets go of the play pen wall and free falls straight down onto the bottom of the play pen, it doesn't hurt at all.  And watching her play with Kitty in the play pen is like watching a UFC Cage Fight.  Kitty gets body slammed into the netting, the corners and the brightly colored floor.

The original play pen is the play pen in my pictures and it was actually the bassinet that Sadie slept in next to my bed for several months when she was much smaller.  However when she hit three months old she was over the weight limit for the bassinet (along with pretty much every other bassinet in the entire world) and it turned into a toy holder.  Until now.  

I underestimated Sadie's ability to get around the baby proofing that has gone on in the house.  There are only a few areas that Sadie is not allowed to play in (she tries to hang on the front of the TV stand and she tries to play on the hearth in front of the wood stove) and Sadie is obsessed with those spots.  They are clearly the most fun areas to play in and I am obviously just a big spoil sport who doesn't want her to have fun (this is also why she believes that I secretly hold huge parties with her rubber duckies the bath tub when she goes down for naps). 

It takes a lot of energy to keep up with Sadie when she's determined to get somewhere.  This is where the playpen comes in.  The little bassinet play pen was pretty small, so Nani and Grumpa surprised Sadie with a new playpen that stands at the edge of the living room.  It's a Graco Play Yard and it is very bright (it doesn't quite match the living room as well as the other one, but it has a lot more room).  

As I said at the beginning of the blog, Sadie isn't quite sure how she feels about the playpen, now that it's a (semi) permanent part of the living room.  It's still a lot of fun... sometimes.  However now that we are going through the "separation anxiety" phase it can also be very scary, even when Mommy is less than two feet away.

This afternoon though, she discovered the best part of the play yard.  Grumpa was sitting on the couch and Sadie was in her play pen.  She crouched down behind on of the solid colored corners and then popped up.  Grumpa acted like he was shocked, which sent Sadie into hysterics.  Once she got her laughter under control she continued to crouch down and then pop up, in an enthusiastic game of peek-a-boo.  The play yard is the best peek-a-boo toy ever!