Tuesday, September 19, 2006

How many more milestones till grown up?

Here to report that our daughter is already an energy conservationist. Which is my fancy way of saying: she prefers not to crawl.

I suppose the guy at littlegeneva would suggest it's because the whitish half of her wants to go one way and the brownish half wants to go the other. Or maybe it’s not about race. Maybe it’s a Hindu/generic-American-spiritualism thing.

In any event we have already caught ourselves saying, "BabyG, Cos crawled a couple months ago, don’t you want crawl, too?”

I have caught GreenDaddy tipping BabyG over so that she might accidentally crawl.

And tonight, our friend Nicole came over, and suggested I set BabyG on her knees to inspire her. BabyG fell flat on her face and screamed.

My grandmother would say, “I never saw a baby who didn’t know how to walk into Kindergarten.” Meaning, of course, these first five years are full of babies moving at their own speeds, and worrying about these things is useless. I know she's right.

Cos’s mom, Kayte, has pointed out that BabyG was an early clapper. She also poos most all the time on the potty. And she has all that hair. Why should a kid who won so big in the hair game care about crawling?

The desire to see her put her proverbial pedals to the metal is less about wanting her do do what other babies do just for the sake of it. It's more specific. I love watching Cos cruise, being surprised by what sorts of things he loves to find...and I really want to see where BabyG would go if she crawls. Even though I know most of my life will be full of me doing just that.

Probably the Zen thing for me to do is to look at where she goes as she’s sitting. That’s not so hard, and actually, BabyG’s a pretty far-out sitter. She sings and makes raspberries and has long word-less conversations with herself, her toys, and her friends. She lectures the broken cell phone for long periods of time. She’s an entertaining, fabulous sitter.

But where will she WANT to crawl!!!! That's all I'm asking! I am terrible with suspense.

Sigh. I almost wish I didn't know anything about the stages of development so that one day she'd just crawl and I'd say, "I'll be damned, look at what the little tyke is doing GreenDaddy!"

And by the way, BabyG's not even actually behind on crawling. She's just fine. Lot's of babies aren't crawling at nine months. I'm just impatient. And excited. All flurried.

I’m sure all this is normal: freaking out over some dumb milestone slash learning how not to freak out. Anybody have their own stories about this sort of thing, from which I might glean whatever it is I need to glean?

4 comments:

Preeti said...

--My friend's baby didn't crawl until he was 12 or 13 months old. Now he is 15 months old and can stand and put one foot forward.
--My brother never crawled. My parents sat him on the beach when we took a trip to Los Angeles. A big wave crashed; he got scared and then he suddenly got up and walked two steps in a desperate attempt to escape the wave.
--I guess babies just develop at different rates.

cake said...

this is a wonderful post. i love your honesty and i love the way you love what lila does, and appreciate the very lilaesque ways that she does things. i think that it is going to be hard for me to ignore what other babies do--when, and compare that to cosmo, but deep down i know how important it is to accept that they just do things when they are ready, and we have to trust them to know when that is.

our friend elise shares cosmo's birthday, and she says it is no surprise he is on the go a little early--sagitarians are (according to her, and with a deep irish accent) "mad fo' road."

chuck said...

my younger sister never crawled, she "scootched." (my parents' word for it.) she sat up with her legs in lotus position and, using the heels of her feet, dug in and moved her body forward, repeating this motion until she reached her destination. her diaper provided good padding. she could hold a bottle in one hand and a rattle in the other, and let her legs do all the work. there's some great home movie of her scootching around the kitchen floor (drawback = hard to do on carpet and cement).

Fiddler said...

My third (and last)child never crawled... he creeped a little tiny bit for the longest time but mostly and watched and took everything in... Finally, without ever even crawling at all, he stood up and then he walked... They're all different...