Look out, world. Maddie is mobile.
……
It started just last week (on Tuesday Jan. 12) when out of nowhere our little girl just started crawling.
Maddie was almost 11 months old at this point, so we had been looking for the crawling milestone for some time. But despite her age we were convinced that crawling was still a ways off based on how she was (or wasn’t) moving around at that point. She hadn’t seemed at all ready to crawl – she wasn’t even really getting up onto her hands and knees yet – and she was so in love with sitting up that we couldn’t even keep her on her tummy long enough to practice her crawling skills. Then, right when we had we resigned ourselves to not worrying about it and letting her go at her own pace, she literally just got up and started crawling across the room.
It happened a few minutes before her bedtime, while playing in our living room. She was sitting and playing at my feet when I felt something pulling at my leg. I looked down and realized she was up on her hands and knees playing with the cuff of my pants. It was the most crawling-like, four-point position I had ever seen her in, so I took a step backwards out of her reach and she just crawled forward to get me!
I ran to tell Will (who, king of great timing, was currently in the bathroom) and he was shocked. After relaying the news, I peeked back down the hall toward the living room where I had left her and Maddie had already moved a few feet down the hall toward me. By the time Will came to look Maddie had navigated the length of the hall and captured a toy she had been eyeing from the living room. She had perfected her technique by the end of the next day and now gets around with ease.
And her new locomotive skills don’t stop there. Not 10 days after she started crawling she was already showing an intense interest in walking. She takes eager steps while holding on to our hands, and almost prefers this assisted walking to crawling. Her form, though incredibly cute, could use some work – her hips wobble all over the place and she steps on her own feet a lot – but she surely is having fun getting around. She is pulling up on objects all around the house and I’m sure she’ll be cruising in no time.
Go, baby, go!
