Scrambling Baby

Well, Linaya has mastered crawling. I put her down on one side of her bedroom and before I get to the door she's behind me already. She wants to discover everything around the rooms where she is which includes ripping books, eating papers, (and everything else she finds), chewing on cords, and in general making it difficult to watch her and do ANYTHING else. Luckily she hasn't figured out that it allows her to get away from us, only to us. At which point, she climbs to a stand and grabs at any fingers that she sees.

She wants primarily to walk still. And she's growing fast at that. She chugs across the room, matching paces with Sandin as she follows him. This is a bit hard on my back of course, since she's still so itty bitty. She doesn't even come to my knees, so she gets upset after I stop playing with her.

On top of all this, Linaya has also got another tooth, right top incisor. This means when she isn't using my fingers to walk with she's trying to bite them.

Still she's the cutest little thing, and really good. She's rarely in a foul mood that can't easily be distracted. Even when she gets hurt she is easy to distract. I love her dearly, and I love motherhood.

Skipping the crawl

Recently, Linaya has decided that she would rather not crawl, but is determined instead to walk. This is difficult for her considering that she still hasn't figured out the basics of the process. When holding our fingers it is her practice to take steps as long as her little stride allows. She steps on her toes as well. This makes the entire movement a little spastic. Still she has realized that it still beats crawling since she can only still manage to scoot backward in increments. So now realizing that walking is in fact a superior way to get around, she is working her hardest to get going. This means that she manages to push herself up onto her feet, in what is known in yoga terms as downward facing dog position. At this point she gets stuck, unable to figure out how to straighten without landing on her face. Instead she topples over and then cries in frustration. Mama, the sucker that she is, immediately goes to rescue her poor bug, and Linaya promptly grabs her fingers and scoots of her lap, thus enabling her to walk, which is what she wanted all along.

Now if only she could only figure out how to grab things without losing her balance when letting go of those fingers.