Baby on the move

After 9 months, 1 week, and 2 days, our baby girl is on the move. She's crawling! It's a half crab crawl, for lack of a better description. It involves two hands, one knee, and one foot. She's not getting far but she's headed in the right direction.

It's not entirely accurate to say she's only on the move now. She was moving before - scooting, really. She was able to get from Point A to Point B on her bottom. She didn't remain long in one spot. But now when we put her down, we need to look farther afield to find out where she's gone (and lately that would be the coffee table in order to relieve it of everything in and out of reach).

Baby proofing, something with which we've been unforgivably lax, has taken on new urgency. We've done some things. We have the baby gates - uninstalled, of course - and we lowered her crib mattress (with the way she's trying to pull herself up, we didn't want to learn she'd succeeded by finding her wailing on the floor in the middle of the night), and we now change her on the floor 50% of the time. The cat toys are out of reach and the potpourri has been tossed. We're trying to teach her that the dog is off bounds. Sadie is a good girl, but she needs her space. Even good girls can reach their limits when persistent baby stalks them around the house. But the rest of the baby proofing . . . we can't put that off any more. The baby with the octopus arms (six of them invisible) needs to be safe.