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.