Crawling!

Two weeks ago today Amelia started crawling! Like most babies, she worked her way up to it. We had weeks of “roll and reach”, then finally some pushing, but backwards. Then she was doing this foot and knee thing for a couple of days – she would creep on all fours, but one was a knee and the other a foot. Then on Saturday, August 12th, she crawled! It was only for three paces, but she did it! And she’s been doing it ever since. We are so proud! And I am sooo relieved. I just didn’t want her to go “straight to walking” as everyone was claiming she might do. I wanted her to have the coordination and problem solving milestones of crawling.

She is having fun, too! Not only is she thrilled that she can move around the house and discover strange new worlds, but she has this little game she plays with herself where she will toss as toy about a foot in front of her, crawl to it, toss again, etc. And of course she’s trying to pull up on things. She’s really good at kneelingwhich gives her just enough height to see over the ottoman and grin maniacally at me.

This milestone also means the floors have to be kept super clean since, of course, everything goes in the mouth. She is so adept at finding little pieces of carpet that the cats (read here: Maynard) rip up. Those just aren’t part of her nutritional needs, something I’ve tried to explain to her. Needless to say, I’ve gotten pretty good at the “finger scoop”. If I even think there’s something in her mouth, I say, “Amelia, do you have something in her mouth?” She just looks at me. I approach her and before I am within range she pops that mouth open for inspection. But I am not fooled so easily. I go ahead and swipe that momma finger, being VERY careful to start at one cheek, hooking my finger across her tongue (behind existing teeth) and quickly moving it to the other cheek. Sometimes there’s something there and sometimes there isn’t, but little missy never tires of seeing if she can manage to bite down and get some flesh (with those very sharp teeth!) during the inspection.

[pictures dated 8/26/06]