Escape Artist

I was talking to my friend Katie the other day about her cat Brix. Apparently, Brix, an indoor cat, got his first taste of the outdoors a couple of weeks ago and now all he wants is to get outside again.

It made me think of Roxy. She is scooting all over the place these days. I'm afraid my long evening walks get a bit boring for her when she's stuck sitting in the pram for so long. She also doesn't do all that well when I try to browse at the shops. Instead of climbing out, she tries to scoot out of her pram.

While thumbing through some greeting cards, I turned around and saw this:

Lucky for me (and her!), she didn't have all the kinks worked out:

Those pesky feet sure get in the way.

I don't think she appreciated my laughter...or the laughter of a fellow shopper.

She spends some time every day looking longingly through the security gate we've installed on the front door.

"Nobody knows... the trouble I've seen...."

She's got a game plan, though. Sometimes I find the friends that she's sent to get help.

Her most trusted friend, Giraffe Reimsen. She should probably send one of her friends with legs next time.

November 11

This is part of an e-mail about Remembrance Day that I wrote to my uncle, who is a veteran.

"In Australia, November 11 is called Remembrance Day. At eleven o'clock in the morning, everybody in the country observes a moment of silence for those lost in wars, and to honor the veterans of those wars. All of the news anchors, politicians and plenty of everyday folks wear a red poppy on their left lapel (as close to their heart as possible) all day because poppies bloomed on many of the worst WWI battlefields in Europe. Nobody gets a day off from work, and nobody says, 'Happy Remembrance Day.' It's a relatively solemn day and wreaths of poppies are placed at memorials and veterans gather to remember their fallen mates."

In other news...

Roxanne turned 11 months old on November 11. There's an old wives' tale that babies get cranky and grizzly right before a big developmental milestone. Well, she cranked to no end on Saturday and Monday and then all of the sudden, she started scooting deliberately all around the place.

Crankenstein Lives!!!

I shot the following video earlier today. She thinks it's a lot of fun to scoot into the bathroom and then scoot away as fast as she can when I try to get her. Sometimes she gets so excited that she just turns around in a circle before she figures which direction she wants to go. Tonight before her bath, she scooted as fast as she could to the edge of the tub and pulled herself up! Uh oh. We're installing the baby gate this weekend and keeping the bathroom door closed from now on.

[This video doesn't seem to work on Safari - anyone else having that problem? It plays in Firefox just fine.]