Sept 14th – Playing with sensory balls on the tummy time mirror at Mountain Kids gym class
Emily has definitely been leaping this past week! According to the Wonder Weeks she’s going through Leap #4, which is all about Events. It’s hard to describe what an “event” is (isn’t that just, everything that happens? Do newborns really not understand “things that happen”?) Well, apparently, Things Happening is a new concept, and Emily is grappling with it now. It makes sense though, if you watch her carefully and imagine that she’s seeing the world for the first time as being a dynamic place filled with causes and effects, rather than just static snapshots.
Sept 14th – Doing some arm strengthening in preparation for crawling.
You can see her track objects, grabbing things with more purpose (if not exactly great dexterity yet), and actively moving in order to obtain things that she wants (or getting frustrated when she can’t). Events also take place in her body, which means her proprioception is switching on and she can understand that her body is moving through space and how that feels. The two obvious signs of this that I’ve noticed are 1) when she’s trying to sit up, I can see her making corrective motions when she starts to tip over and 2) Playing airplane is now uproariously fun and involves endless laughter and smiles for miles. Needless to say, this activity also happens to be Mommy’s favorite thing in the world now!!
Sept 15th – Action shot!
The other big developments have been: Sitting up (so close!) and the very first tiny scooches along the floor. So ok, I’m jumping the gun. By a lot. This is like, if learning to crawl is a 50 stage process, she’s completed stage #1. While on tummy time with her arms folded in front of her, she pulled her arms closer and scoonched forward by an inch, and it was clearly a massive effort to do so. But hey, is there anything in the world cooler than the fact that your kid has just done something that they have Literally Never Done before?? There will no longer in the history of the entire Universe come a time when this exact Emily Kastens has not yet made a move to crawl. That infinity of past is now done. It blows my mind.
Onwards!
Sept 16th – Flying baby.
Sept 17th – Working hard
Sept 18th – Sitting up now with just minuscule support.
Sept 19th – First time sitting up with no support! (Mom very close by and ready to catch the inevitable tip-over).