About a month ago (roughly a week before she turned 10 months old), Heather started crawling with alacrity. She had previously managed to go backwards from a crawling position, not quite figuring out that only her arms were doing the work and they were more geared towards pushing at things than pulling herself along. When she’d mastered the crawl, I had the supreme joy of being the first person that she intentionally crawled forward to - “Come to Mommy!” - wow, how rewarding! Of course, every smile and giggle is rewarding at this stage - it’s hard to believe how much fun it is to be a parent!
We took our time, at first, with babyproofing the place as most of the wires and outlets are well-protected by blocking furniture. I came home one day after Paul had been home with Heather doing “daddy daycare” and he casually mentioned that she’d figured out the DVD player. He’d put on a Baby Einstein video for Heather and turned back to his work. A short time later he realized that the video wasn’t playing any more and that she had managed to swat at the DVD player in the right place to eject the DVD and had been pressing that same button, having the tray move in and out, several times. At some point, she got the DVD out and was waving it around as she does most things she can grasp. Later yet, he heard a repetitive ‘thump’, ‘thump’ and turned to see her doggedly attempting to get one of the cabinet doors on the TV stand open. It was opening a little and then closing again because she was in the way of it opening all the way. That trick was figured out pretty quickly and soon the cabinet was emptied all over the living room floor. Fortunately, Heather confined herself pretty well to the main living area (combined living and dining room where we also have our computer desk) for a week or two. We finally went out a couple weeks ago and got some gizmos to keep the cabinets on the TV stand and in the kitchen secure.
Learning to crawl makes a huge difference to how a baby experiences their world when they’re out of our arms/laps/strollers/car seats. The first time Heather was in the bath after she’d developed a forward crawl, I was struck by her confidence in leaning forward and getting around the tub using her new skill (I often set her in the slowly filling tub on her own with several toys and just supervise sitting on the bathroom mat). Previously, she’d been very tentative, cautiously reaching for things and scooting around because she was not happy to slip forward into an all-fours position in the water. Now she just sees what she wants and confidently gets to it. Out of the water, she enjoys chasing the cat around the apartment (this is a neighborhood cat that comes by for visits) and batting one of her new balls across the floor and following after it. Her steadiness on all fours has, I think, also leapfrogged to her being able to pull herself up on just about anything that she can get a reasonable purchase on with her hands - the side of the tub, the faucet, and - out of the bath - any part of my body or clothing, the coffee table, her toy bin, and the living room chairs.
For myself as a parent, there’s nothing quite like the delightful ’slap, slap, slap!’ of Heather’s bare hands on the wood floors between the two area rugs in our living room. But it’s even more special to see her happily navigate around in the grass. Paul has a video or two on his site of her smiling and heading directly for the camera. There’s one that’s particularly endearing where she does a brief face plant in the middle of her crawl, gets back up on all fours, scowls briefly at the camera and transitions quickly back into a grinning crawling baby intent on smearing the lens. The end of this video has her also clearly (to our ears) saying “daddy” to the cameraman.
Heather’s still overjoyed to succeed in coaxing an adult into assisting her with walking. She’ll pull herself up on your fingers and then take off, grinning hugely and often giggling or coughing with joy as she stomps across the floor. She’s taken to turning randomly on a dime, seemingly changing direction just for the fun of it. Without our support, she’s cruising between accessible pieces of furniture (tonight, that meant from me to the ottoman to the coffee table to the couch). At this point she does this very cautiously, clearly preferring that I offer her a hand instead of her having to reach from one item to another.
Okay, I’ve written a lot tonight and it’s time for bed. I’m afraid all the best supporting images are in videos - please see Paul’s blog to enjoy these!
Some women from my mother’s group are getting together for a girl’s-night-out (without our bubs) tomorrow and that should be quite nice. And Paul and I may be going to see the new Batman movie next Wednesday as Paul got some free tickets at work. If we can find a babysitter (the one we had lined up ended up having tickets to Cirque de Soleil the same night)!
