Proof Positive

Here it is. Undeniable proof that our son can crawl.

As you can see he has an attraction the coffee table. It must be sugar coated because he goes after it every time.

Now that he's realized his mobility it's really becoming both challenging and a lot of fun. When I left the living room last night to check on dinner in the kitchen, he started crying and was halfway to the kitchen in seconds.

It also brings to mind an idea. Nerf furniture. Market it to both kids and young parents. It sells itself. You could sell it the aisle with that cheap, ghetto looking inflatable furniture junk.

Until Nerf steps up to the plate, I've put the corner guards on the coffee table and have fitted the extra outlets with those plastic covers.

Your baby starts crawling and the next thing you know you view every hard and sharp thing as a potential threat.

Crawling Confirmed/Heartbreak Averted

The boy is officially crawling. No ifs ands or buts. He's moving. And he's attracted to the coffee table like Star Jones is attracted to attention. No matter what direction he's facing, he finds a way to spin around and head toward the most dangerous object in the room. Probably because he wants to pull himself up by it, but luckily he's a bit too small to do that just yet.

Heartbreak was averted when we saw him crawl before the babysitter...told us he'd done it there. Ok, so it's mildly disappointing to know we weren't the first ones to see him crawl. But it wasn't so bad because we got to think we were first. Then later we found out we weren't, but it softened the blow considerably.

I'll have some new pictures to post soon. Hopefully by tomorrow.

Did That Baby Just Crawl?

The Ballad of A Crawling Baby continues. I’m not really sure if I witnessed a monumental occasion in my son’s life last night or if I’m just an eternal optimist.

He got a gift (complete with Pooh gift bag) from our neighbors across the street. It was sitting in the floor and my son was a few feet away. He got up on hands and knees and moved each hand a bit, moved one leg forward and the next thing I knew he was crawling.

Or was he?

It was a couple feet at most. One leg never really moved and he couldn’t duplicate it when his mother got into the room. So I’m left with the question. Did I just see my son crawl or did I just see him pull with his hands, drag his legs behind him and grab a gift bag. My glass is half full, so I’m saying he crawled…sort of.

Today’s tidbit of advice regards bathing your baby. If you don’t have a cup or something in there to pour over the baby’s head, then you’re missing out. That’s the lifesaver when trying to get shampoo out of his/her head after they begin sitting up in the bath.

Too Soon, Too Soon (Ptewie, Ptewie, Ptewie)

This is a pictorial progression of our son. It is designed to scare the living daylights out of parents to be and parents of newborns. They grow up at an alarming rate. Oh, and the “(Ptewie, Ptewie, Ptewie)” is supposed to be the sound made when spitting, like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
The first picture is when he's less than one month. The second is when he's just around one month (5 weeks I think) and the last was taken today, his 8month birthday. Excuse me while I go cry like a little girl.

Crawling...the next frontier

Crawling is supposed to be a part of the natural progression of your baby. But so far it has been a challenge and a frustration for our son, and to a lesser extent, to us.

It’s a precarious position for a young parent. You want to see your child stay on par with other babies his/her age. You want to match teething stories and crawling stories tit for tat with his peers. But at the same time you’re in no hurry for the child to get one minute older. For that matter, you’re in no hurry for him to become mobile either. Rolling is one thing, crawling opens up a virtual Pandora’s box of potential troublemaking.

Our son has been pushing himself up with his arms for sometime. He’s been craning his neck out of the bassinet each morning as if to say, “I’m awake, wet and hungry….you know what to do.” In the last couple weeks he’s been pushing himself with his arms. Unfortunately, when you’re on your belly and you push yourself with your arms, you only go backwards, thus his frustration.

Occasionally in the last week or so he’s begun to use his legs only a little. There has been no forward motion, but he’s perched on his toes and hands and rocked. Ever so often he’s actually been on hands and knees rocking, but still no forward motion. We root for him and cheer him on. He looks at us like we’re ape-people and then collapses under the weight of his own body.

We’re getting closer. I feel like we’re less than a week away from the first crawl. My fear is that he’s going to do it at the babysitter’s. I really hope he holds out until he’s at home. You feel like you miss so much just being at work everyday. Luckily he’s only teethed on the weekends, so we’ve been able to see those things sprout. But crawling worries me. I guess we’ll see.

Pool Fun

The best $8 investment in my recent memory is the inflatable pool I bought at Dollar General recently. Getting my son in the pool is no problem as he has really come to like being the water. Yesterday in our less than exciting Fourth of July celebrating, we decided to have pool time. This pool is round and probably five feet in diameter. So amuse yourselves with visions of two grown adults and an infant in a tiny pool of water.

Now that you've quelled your laughter, I'll continue. With our young son, we didn't make any plans for the Fourth. Although I was very tempted to return to the campus of Western Kentucky University (go TOPS!) for their shindig featuring the Bowling Green Chamber Orchestra. But since it was a weeknight and our son goes to bed before dark, I was outvoted by common sense.

So I got a touch of cabin fever yesterday and decided to have our pool party. I brought a radio outside and we took towels and all as if we were going for a day at the beach. I guess this was done for my amusement. But the real fun is watching my son in the water. I "taught" him how to do a cannonball by holding his legs up against his chest and splashing him down in the water. I leaned him back so his head touched the water, but he didn't care for that much.

Mostly he just giggles at us giggling at him. His laughter is as infectious as the common cold. And I guess ours is to him as well. Anyway, my advice for this post is to invest in a pool.