Saturday, June 25, 2005

Inflection Points

I always assumed there'd be a clear line between stages of childhood development: one day she wouldn't be grabbing, one day she would; one day she wouldn't be crawling, one day she would; one day she wouldn't be babbling, one day she would. I'm beginning to realize these things come on so gradually it's possible to miss them. She got more and more grabby, little by little, and one day we realize she's grabbing all the time...when did that happen.
And on the crawling front, she doesn't crawl exactly, but she makes forward progress by wriggling, like a soldier with his kneecaps shot off crawling up the beach. Sometimes she even gets a leg under her and gets that extra boost, or does a push up. Cathy claims it is crawling, and wrote it down in her journal. "First crawl." I don't know, myself. One day I'll notice that she really is crawling for sure, but I won't be able to pinpoint the exact day it started.
I imagine speech will be the same: did she just say "Hi"? Or was it just a random sound?

1 comment:

misterorange said...

Allow me to offer some advice: Let your kid get angry and frustrated at crawling. When you try to get them "set up" and they fall and get pissed off, -let them-. This is how my daughter Abby learned how to crawl like 5 months before my first child.

The secret is to let them get angry and help them as much as possible. Just don't "baby" them out of progress.