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February 10, 2006
crawling
Roughly 1 month ago, Naomi started crawling. We knew she was close because when we placed her on her hands and knees, she was trying to move. You could almost see her thinking, "Ok, now what do I do?" and experimentally moving just her arms. Then one day, she was able to, herky-jerky, crawl a few feet to (what else?) get to mommy.
Now its a whole new world.
She isn't a rocketship just yet, jetting from room to room. Her desire to crawl right now is limited to seeing something and wanting to go over to explore it or play with it. She doesn't take long strolls for enjoyment. And when she's tired or cranky, the first thing she looks for is a pair of legs, and crawls over, stops, and sticks her arms out in the plaintive, "Carry me!" gesture. Or sometimes she'll just sit where she is, locate you by sight, and stick her arms out from there. My daughter, ladies and gentlemen. (I'd say she's lazy, but someone already chastised me for calling my child that).
It is fun to watch her do this, but now we really do have to watch her. The CD rack will soon have to be cleared, as one of her favorite pastimes it to crawl over there, and pull CDs off the shelves onto the floor. Sometimes to play with them, other times to pull them down and crawl away. Another time, I put her down in the living room to play and I laid on the couch to rest a bit. When I opened my eyes, she had made her way up a step to the entry way and was pulling shoes off the shoe rack and playing with each one. We were warned that it was much easier when our child was stationary and wherever we put her down, she'd more or less stay in the same area. Now we know what other parents are talking about. There are days when I get home, where I can just tell the path she crawled by all the stuff that's been pulled to the floor and "rearranged, Naomi-style".
It definitely sped up our plans to childproof. We've gotten the electrical outlet covers (I think that's pretty standard) but I don't know if we're going to go all the way and get all those various cabinet door latches, toilet seat cover locks, etc. That strikes me as a bit of an industry taking advantage of a parent's natural protective tendencies. When I was a kid, I don't remember having to deal with any of that stuff, except for the outlet covers, that's just good sense. At dinner with clients yesterday, my boss said he even paid someone to come over to evaluate his house for necessary childproofing, and ordered stuff from them based on their recommendations. I don't think we'll need to do that. Of course, the first time she hurts herself on a sharp edge at home, i could change my opinion and join the super-protective crowd.
For now, it is just so exciting to watch her explore her new world and develop new means to do so. When I figure out how to do so, I'll be posting some video clips up on here.
Posted by spoof747 at February 10, 2006 08:20 PM