On the Move

I think I've mentioned before how amazed Brandon and I always are whenever Kate does something new.   It's astounding how quickly she masters tasks, and I think that it's so fun to watch her figure out new things.  It usually takes her a little while to grasp a skill, and we get to watch her work through figuring it out.  But this month, we blew us away with her ability to do something new when she, almost suddenly, starting crawling.  Let me qualify this story by saying that when we say crawling, we're not talking about her being up on her hands and knees and motoring all around.  It's more of an army-style  low crawl, where she pushes herself with her feet and drags herself with her arms, but don't let that fool you--she's still motoring.

When Kate wakes up in the morning during the week, we usually bring her into the bathroom with us (this is probably the only time that I appreciate there being carpeting in the master bath) and let her play on the floor.  There's usually all sorts of things for us to jump over and maneuver around--the playmat, her Bumbo, miscellaneous books and toys--as well as Copper and Kate herself.  One morning, we happened to notice her doing something new.  She was laying on her tummy, her favorite position, and pushing herself up with her arms so that she was in a baby pushup position.  She'd kind of hang out like that, looking all around and rocking a little back and forth.  We've read enough baby books and talked enough with friends who blazed the kiddo trail before us to know that this was often the first step to a mobile baby.  Brandon and I looked at each other and said "she'll be crawling soon".  And that, as far as I was concerned, was that for the time being.  I figured that our little bug, who hadn't even had her five month birthday yet, would practice pushing up into that position for at least a few days before she started moving.  But  I was wrong.

After work, I left Kate with Brandon and Copper and went to the grocery store.  When I got home, Brandon excitedly said to me, "Guess what Kate did?"  Usually, that means that she had a pretty spectacular diaper blowout, but I wasn't pleasantly surprised when Brandon told me that wasn't it.  Instead, he showed me a video he'd taken with the iPad.  A video of Kate CRAWLING.  I couldn't believe it!  In the span of 12 hours, she'd figured out that if she got into baby push up position, pushed with her feet and pulled with her arms, she could scooch herself forward to get whatever toy or object had struck her fancy (in the video it happened to be a clean diaper...weird).  So of course, I cried.  Not because I'd missed it, but because our little peanut was so very clearly growing up.

Kate took a little break after that day, deciding that her newfound mobility was quite a bit of work, and she didn't move around too much for a few days.  Well, that phase is over and she's moving around like crazy.  She's gotten quite good at turning, and can get turned around so she's facing you in a jiffy.

Here's some video Brandon took of the first time she moved on her own...