It is official

She is crawling. She is very coordinated about it, if she is still a bit slower than average. I am sure that she will pick up the speed very quickly.

almost, kinda, sorta

She is almost crawling.

She gets herself from sitting down on to her hands and knees. Then she walks her hands forward and, after some thinking, she will scoot one knee up, then the other.

She is by no means coordinated or even very quick about it. It probably took her 2 minutes to move 6 inches. But it is certainly an improvement and a good starting point to work with.

And, she is very proud of herself. She kept looking up at me (she was mostly looking at the laundry basket which was her motivation for moving) and smiling, then sticking her tongue out.

new, current pic

Look at that face!

You must also note the blurry foot. This is because she perpetually kicks her feet when laying on her stomach. Particularly when she is happy or frustrated. Here, she is happy. She loves having her picture taken.

More...more...more

Today she performed her voluntary tummy time 4 more times (moving from a sitting position to laying on her tummy). She did this 2 times on the bed and 2 times on the floor.

In case you are wondering about the significance of the bed vs. floor issue, I will explain. She is more likely to make a large move (rolling over, going from sitting to tummy) on the bed because she knows it is soft and she will not hurt herself.

Tomorrow is PT day. I can't wait to tell her how well things are going.

voluntary tummy time

Today, I was sitting on the couch, talking on the phone with Matt (normally I am sitting on the floor near Ella when she is playing). While we were talking, Ella decided that she wanted the top to her drum which was way out of her reach. She moved herself from a sitting position to laying on her belly on the floor so that she could reach this toy. This is the first time she has done this in months, and the first time she has EVER done it on the floor (the previous time it happened, she was on the bed).

Also, when she did it, she did not cry.

I will say it again: She did not cry.

a new picture

I feel bad for sending people back over a month to find a picture of Ella, so I decided to add another. The problem is that it is not a recent pic. This was taken when she was 11 months old. She is standing on our sofa, facing backwards. She loves this position because she can look out the window, and pet any cats that happen to be sleeping on the back of the couch.

Update on the PT front: She is great at going from sitting to kneeling. She is not crawling yet, but we are at least now able to really work on it because she is tolerant of being on her hands and knees at the same time. She used to hate it, and would push her legs out straight at the first opportunity. She is also really interested in moving around in a crawling fashion because she can explore many things in a short period of time. She is generally much more interested in moving about and I hope to be announcing some big breakthroughs very soon.

relatives

There was a question raised at a family gathering as to who was a second cousin or a third cousin, etc. etc.

Needless to say, my extended family isn't that large so the need to answer these questions has not risen before now.

Answers: To me, my cousin's children are my cousins once removed.
To Ella, my cousin's children are her second cousins.
So: RJ, Kaitlin, Tyler, Hammon and Dylan are my cousins once removed and they are Ella's second cousins.

Hope that clears everything up.

sleep and parental laziness

We travelled to PA to visit relatives on Sunday. Ella had to take a nap in an unfamiliar environment. This usually results in no sleeping and lots of screaming. This time it resulted in a 2 1/2 hour nap. I am thankful and incredibly confused all at the same time.

As a result of all of the visiting, travelling, and other work done this holiday weekend, I have not been doing much PT work with Ella. However, she did spend a lot of time around children who move more than her, so she had a lot of good role models to watch. This also seems to be paying off. Today Ella was VERY energetic. She balanced while standing for time measuring in seconds rather than milliseconds (the latter being most common so far). She moved around a lot, and she even tried to roll over while Matt was getting her into her PJs.

I wonder what the PT will say tomorrow.

the difference between doing and mastering

OK, I have learned a good lesson in the past few weeks. But first, lets take a trip to the past.

At Ella's 9 month appointment: I tell the doc that Ella has rolled over a few times, but isn't doing it regularly. She says, thats ok, as long as we know she can do it. She also says not to worry about the not rolling over since she has mastered sitting and the skill of sitting comes after the skill of rolling over (PT says this is not a good way to look at child development: skipping steps is not good if it is essential and rolling over is essential).

So, you know that she had rolled over a few times (6 times max.) before she started her therapy. Now, she has rolled over an average of 4 times a week for the past 2-3 weeks. Much better than the past, but still not mastery. Her PT says that, in order for her to have mastered a skill, she must be able to do it without help multiple times in one day. Needless to say we are not quite there, but we certainly are a lot closer than we were a few weeks ago.

So, lesson learned: it is great when she does something once, or even a few times. However, I shouldn't get so excited as to think that I no longer have to work on that move with her. There is going to be a bit of space between doing something once and mastering it to the point where I don't have to practice it with her anymore.

Also on the movement front: She has almost mastered going from sitting to kneeling. At her last PT session she pulled up to kneeling by holding on to her toy bin (we put a 10lb. weight in it so it wouldn't tip over) multiple times without any help at all. Since the session she has pulled up on me multiple times and has done it a few more times on the toy bin. However, she gets lazy and will reach for a toy that is close by sometimes, instead of pulling up all the way to reach for a toy that is farther away.