Cruising the Coffee Table

Cruising the Coffee Table
Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

Movement movement, the bane and focus of our existence. As expected Nathaniel has steadily refused to crawl for the past few months. He used to flip over on his back when we put him on his tummy. Now he props himself into a sitting position whenever we purposely put him in a crawling position. He is intent on walking though. He started pulling himself up on his own when we were on vacation in Atlantic Beach. Now he is pulling himself up 20 times a day on anything and everything-window sills, coffee tables, stepping stools, chairs, steps. He cruises around coffee tables and walks from chair to chair. He seems to have absolutely no fear and no idea that he actually can't walk yet. So he will be standing at a chair and I will be sitting on the floor next to him when he sees another chair five feet away. As long as I am near him, he just willy nilly launches himself at the next object, willing himself the ability to walk to it. When I am nowhere near he shows more prudence and caution but hurts himself far more when he tumbles. God this is an agonizing development period. But his balance improves by the hour. Now he can stand holding on with only one hand and mantain really good balance for a few minutes.

Interestingly the balance he is gaining by standing is now having some impact on his on the ground abilities. Just this morning he did a weird crawl shuffle for two or three steps. He got into a crawling position with one leg folded for crawling and the knee on the ground but the other leg with a foot on the ground. Through a combination of shuffle, crawl, drag, he moved about two feet.

So we return home soon and I now have to get our whole house prepared for the whirlwind that is Nathaniel. We haven't baby proofed any of our house and I know we are in for a few rough days as we all work out the kinks.