Destination: Water Bowl

Kathleen has been honing her honing skills this weekend, from crawling, to rolling, to sitting up on her own. As you might imagine, it's been a busy weekend.

Baby girl started crawling last week. First, it was a half crawl to proceed the distance of one foot. Now, it's extended to exploring the formerly unreachable boundaries of the house. Her favorite destination by far is our pets' water bowl. Kathleen enjoys water, so I'm not surprised. I'll sit her down in the living room which is the signal to get up and crab crawl (she really does remind me of a hermit crab) to the coffee table and divest it of everything she can reach (which is quite a lot). Once relieved of its load, she'll make her way into the kitchen whereby she'll spy the lonely water bowl (we've moved their food out of reach). Ah! She crab crawls to the bowl, plops her be-diapered bottom onto the floor, and pulls the bowl into reach. Splash, splash, splash. Screech! SplashSplashSplashSplashSplash . . . Baby and floor covered in water, diaper expanded to immense proportions. Do I stop her? No. What use would it be? And anyway, I love watching her.

Crawling has led to her conquering a formerly unwanted skill: rolling over. She was able to roll over months ago, but it was too much trouble for her to bother with often, especially the back to front. Not only was it hard, but for what conceivable reason would she ever want to be on her tummy? Tummy time is baaaaad. Booooooo, hisssssss. Not so now. No, now tummy time is a portal to a vast, new world - an exciting, new frontier, once tantalizingly viewed from a distance but now within easy reach for extensive exploration. It's also an opportunity to transform your average, boring, old diaper change into an interesting time.

And rolling has lead to sitting up on her own . . . usually in the middle of the night or early morning or right after a nap. She is no longer content to lay on her back quietly playing with her toes for half an hour. She must now roll over and lever herself into the sitting position. This, she says to herself, is wonderful . . . until she can't figure out how to get back down again. I lost track how many times we found her sitting up in her crib because she couldn't lay back down again. Once she masters that, it'll be on to pulling herself into standing position and not knowing how to sit back down again. But one dilemma at a time. . . .