Tuesday, July 7, 2009

My Baby is Crawling!

Cave Baby is crawling. Not just shuffling a bit, we're talking really crawling now, on the other side of the room if I turn my back, trying to pull electrical plugs out if I leave her for 30 seconds. Her world has expanded from zero dimensions (a point), through one dimension (a line), right to two dimensions (a plane). And with her already pulling herself up against furniture, she's nudging that third dimension too.

This is such a sea-change. I feel like I'm having to learn to be her mum all over again. I am trying to imagine how incredibly exciting it must be to go from sitting like a blob in the middle of a room to being able to reach anything and everything you want. I'm trying to think of times when my own freedom underwent a step change: when I first started taking the bus; when I learnt to drive; when I left home. But none of it can compare to the hugeness of going from not moving to moving. And it certainly makes me feel proud as a mum. I made that baby, and look at her now, mobile as a, erm, mobile thing. She's developing! She's just like all the other babies! She is my baby and she is the cleverest, most surprising, most unique little baby on the planet!

Now, let me go and belatedly baby proof this death trap of a house.

9 comments:

Liz said...

Congratulations, how exciting! A fully mobile menace! I found that I always felt one stage behind my children - I'd just adjusted to them doing one thing and then they'd learn to do something else and be on to the next stage while I was only just coming to terms with the previous one! Thankfully things ahve slowed down now enough for me to catch up slightly!

Cave Mother said...

Liz - you have put into words exactly how I am feeling! I'll just get my head around this crawling thing when she learns to walk.

willow81 said...

Well done Cave Baby! Once they get the hang of it they can go REALLY FAST, it's quite unnerving at first. I just posted something about these changes, how quickly things change. And how they just do it, just like that, of their own accord. It's lovely.

Jessica - This is Worthwhile said...

Ha! I didn't babyproof a thing until my son was mobile either! And even then I did one thing at a time. Like he didn't even notice electrical outlets, but he was definitely in all my cabinets. So the cabinets got locked first.

Yay for Cave Baby!! Well done, girl!

willow81 said...

As electrical sockets have been mentioned I just wanted to post a link to this video which explains why socket covers can be a danger:

http://www.fatallyflawed.org.uk/html/videos.html

xx

Noble Savage said...

My son just started crawling a couple weeks ago, while we've been on vacation. We get back home tomorrow and I'll be having to do a big crawl-around our house to baby proof some stuff at his level. Goodbye bottom junk drawer in the kitchen!

Congrats to Cave Baby, and to you. It's such an exciting, wondrous time.

Cave Mother said...

Thanks for the link Willow. Very interesting. I don't know what to do know. I remember my brother getting electrocuted by inserting keys into a socket, so obviously the internal covers are not perfect. I guess watching baby all the time is the only solution.

Cave Mother said...

Noble Savage - I hate clutter and a crawling baby has given me the perfect excuse to get rid of every bit of superfluous junk that was littering our house. Now what should I do with the cat's bowl?

Unknown said...

Well done Cave Baby! We baby proofed the house once my son was mobile but he quickly learnt how to take off the socket covers and open cupboards! He's very good with locks! He pulled all the corner cushions off too! So this time round we haven't done much more than a cupboard lock here and there and stairgates.
Now she's moving she'll never stop, have fun!