Finally Crawling

Eva's now mobile. Before now, she'd do a modified inchworm/bellyflop, and a forward faceplant (though only on the bed). But the process was slow and tedious enough that she'd cry and whine quite a bit, and plainly didn't enjoy resorting to it.

My frustration boiled over once or twice, especially when she'd seem to make a little progress one day and then, the next, seem to not try at all, but resort to complaints. That gave birth to my wishfully-thinking idea, the "No Complaints Club", something I intend to rely on in coming years (and yes, it will apply to me too, though I'm honest enough to know that I'll be a little hypocritical about it).

Anyway, Eva finally put it together. Kate and I joke, not only that she was going to walk before crawling, but that she was doing ballet and yoga before crawling too. She'd plant hands and feet, and arch herself, tailbone high in the air, and stare back at her feet. That's some yoga move with a name I don't know. (There's another move Eva's been doing for months, that isn't so unusual--it's known as the the "happy baby". Roll on your back, grab your heels with your hands, and pull them up toward your head. Eva does that regularly, with the added touch of putting her toes in her mouth.)

When it came to the crawling again, Eva would snuffle and paw the ground like a bull about to charge, as she slowly learned to trust her balance with only three limbs on the floor--she was finally willing to pick one up, but still afraid to put it back down anywhere but where she'd picked it up from. Most recent was the plie', where she'd be up on hands and feet, then lift one leg behind her and arch her back in reverse, then look up for help.

But no help was coming, see, because Kate and I were both getting a little impatient for the little tiger cub to get her own tail in motion.

In the last week she's put the elements together, and managed one or two forward crawls of all four limbs at a time, before losing confidence, looking up and crying. (There are too many parallels to Kate's and my own personalities here for me to comfortably go into right now, but suffice to say, most family members reading this are probably nodding wryly.)

Anyhow, the baby was moving. We were both relieved, because that meant it was simply a matter of time before she just figured out to keep on doing the same. And last night, as I was geeking it up learning about wartime oil work in the Louisiana bayous (fun reading, actually), Kate excitedly called me up from the upstairs landing: "Mike! Eva's crawling!"

And so she was...

(Hopefully the bandwidth doesn't mess up your connection, or crash the computer. It's a small video, which is the only reason I posted it.)

Eva's first extended crawl, where she made it from point A to point B. With every mileston in a child's growth, Kate and I hear the same joke: "Oh, nooww your life's REEEEEEAALLLLY over..." First marriage (among guys--but every woman's heard that one a zillion times); then having a pregnant wife (ditto); then the baby's birth; now that the baby can actually crawl and now requires our constant safeguarding vigilance. Frankly, I don't mind keeping vigil over my little girl. Maybe I'm just happily resigned to my life being over, I guess, but I find it pretty easy to pay attention to the little tiger cub. Especially when she's keeping herself entertained, and not just sitting there complaining.