Posts tagged manipulation

Well, guess what Nathan did today?

No, it wasn’t a Mega Poop.  And no, he didn’t fall asleep standing up again.

Ok, since the possibilities are endless, I’ll just tell you.

He was on his belly, scooting around the living room floor. Drool was flying everywhere and his hands and feet were spinning and whacking the air so feverishly that they became a blur. I could practically hear the air whistle as his limbs sliced through it. All of a sudden, he stopped, raised himself up to all fours and after rocking back and forth a couple times, he pushed himself up into the sitting position!

For the first time in his life, my little boy didn’t need my assistance to go from laying down to sitting up!

I’m so happy right now!!

See, he’s not started actually crawling with his tummy off the floor just yet. He crawls backwards though. And he rolls around from front to back all over the place. He also does the Army Crawl, and recently, he started doing half Army Crawl, half Lurch. And he’ll get up on all fours and rock back and forth. But no crawling.

If you’re a parent, then I’m sure you can understand when I say that his lack of mobility had me worried. When he was nine months old and still not crawling, I started obsessing over it. After all, I thought ALL babies crawled by nine months.

So I got on the Internet and worried myself to death by researching what other nine-month-olds were doing. I watched You Tube Videos. I cried. I wrung my hands. I obsessed over why he wasn’t like other  babies, and I worried ceaselessly.

I worried so much that I lost sleep at night.

But then his pediatrician said that some babies completely skip crawling and go straight to walking. But he thinks that Nathan is simply choosing not to crawl. Because, get this, he would rather Mommy pick him up and CARRY HIM AROUND. So I quit carrying him around whenever Nathan cried for me to. Now, Nathan plays on the floor and if he wants a toy that’s out of his reach, I gently encourage him to go get it himself. If he cries when I walk away, I tell him to come to me.

And he tries.

He may not be crawling yet, but he is zipping around all over the place.

And he loves to stand. He can’t stand on his own yet or pull himself up, but he can hold onto furniture and keep his balance. And it’s precious watching him because he just looks so proud of himself. He’s all smiles and his head swivels around like that of an owl, trying to take in every single new detail he can obtain from this new height.

Sometimes he looks around so much that it seems like his head is going to just SWIVEL RIGHT OFF.

But his head is still attached. Miraculously, considering the amount of swiveling it does on a daily basis…