Entries from March 2006 ↓

Geez, it’s been a long time since we posted. Sorry about that. Linnaea’s crawling like a little pro now. She wasn’t satisfied merely to crawl for very long, and is now pulling herself up on things every chance she gets. Unfortunately, this has involved several face-plants, but kids are made of God-rubber (thanks to Glenn Beck for the term), and she never seems to take much damage.

Bedtime is normally a Pater-daughter routine, but Pater fences on Mondays and doesn’t get home until after the peanut is long gone. So last night, I got her into her sleep sack (like footie pajamas, but with a sack instead of legs) and put her down in her crib. She immediately rolled over and, with the strength of ten men, pulled herself up to a standing position at the crib rail and started bouncing around. It was cute, but with her legs in a bag, she was getting pretty tangled up pretty quickly, and was heading straight for another face-plant. After consulting with Pater on the phone, I took her out of the sleep sack and just dressed her in warm clothes instead. I kissed her goodnight, laid her back in the crib, and went downstairs with the monitor. Linnaea normally cries for about a minute before zonking out, so it took a little while before I perceived that she was crying harder and more persistently than normal. I thought that perhaps she’d pulled herself up but was too tired to keep standing and had crashed into the sides of her crib, so I went up to check on her. I opened the door to see one tiny, exhausted, and frightened child standing up in her crib, hanging onto the side rail for dear life.

She can stand up, yes, but she doesn’t know how to sit down. I got to play Mommy-to-the-rescue, she fell asleep without trying to stand up again, and today we’ve been working on how to get down once we’ve gotten up.

This weekend was a big one for Linnaea. Of major note, she’s now crawling.

She has been up on her hands and knees doing the rocking thing for quite awhile now, as you are all well aware (and if not, then you have some catching up to do), but she hadn’t quite put all of the pieces together for forward locomotion. She could rock hard enough to scoot her play yard. She could slide backwards. She could even move forward with her knees and one arm, and then stretch her body out, inchworm fashion. On Saturday, she finally went a full cycle of knees and hands. But that was pretty much it, one cycle and then stretch out on tummy.

Sunday got off to a weird start for the parental-types, neither feeling too well. Linnaea, however, was a bundle of happy cuteness and ready for action. She made it pretty obvious to me from the get go that she wasn’t interested in lying down. After a bottle she pleaded to jump in her Jumperoo, and I conceded. After a while, it became evident that she needed a new diaper. I brought her to her room and put her in her crib while I picked out some clothes for her to wear. While I was changing her she began rubbing her eyes, indicating fatigue and that maybe I could get her to take a nap. So back into the crib she went. As is our custom when I put her to bed, we played for a little while. But the pre-nap festivities weren’t going to play out per custom.

From her hands and knees, Linnaea backed herself into a sitting position. She does this all the time, actually, but she doesn’t ever get herself upright – she is on her butt but leaning on one hand. This time, she sat all the way up. By herself. In the middle of her crib. She was quite pleased with herself, as was daddy, but she wasn’t finished. She leaned out for the bars of the side of the crib, and slowly began to pull herself up. One at a time, she reached her hands further up the spindles until she could grab the top rail. Then, with much effort, she gathered her feet beneath her and stood up. Again, by herself. She was very, very pleased. A happy little girl, standing at the side of her crib, surveying her demesne.

So, perhaps it came as little surprise when later that evening she figured out the crawling thing for real. It’s still hard work for her, and she will cheat with her stretch move when she is in range of an object, but she has figured out that she can remain on all-fours and proceed to navigate whatever horizontal surface she is on. I think that she is going to have a lot of fun crawling around, but I think it will be but a momentary distraction in her endeavor to walk.

So about this “baby-proofing” thing…

From Nana’s visit:

I just sent these to Pater, and thought you all might like them, too.

Linnaea was really bad about gagging herself today, so I started giving her a little slap on the hand every time she jammed her fingers down her throat. Her response? She started slapping my hand right back as though it were a game–like some weird, bulimic version of pat-a-cake. She’s marvelous.