Joseph continues to impress us with his ever increasing agility. He is very good at catching himself if he looses his balance or grip (though he still sometimes falls) and he is rather comfortable lowering himself down as well as pulling himself up now. Feb. 2nd he cruised from the sofa chair to the baby bay to the rocking chair to a dining room chair to me – it was quite the tour!
The big news, however is that February 1st in PEKiP he started creeping on hands and knees. The floor surface at PEKiP is rubber matting so his usually fast belly crawl doesn’t work so well. Stephan and I were excited to watch him make his first few “steps” on hands and knees. Stephan has the month off so he is enjoying PEKiP with us. We’re so happy to have Daddy there to watch the fun! Yesterday I put Joseph at the end of the collapsed ironing board and rested the other end on my knees. I used a toy to lure him up the board, and he did a beautiful creep up to me as the board is too narrow for a belly crawl to work. On his own, Joseph has been doing a mix of belly and hand-and-knees crawling for a while but today I think we can officially say that he is creeping on hands and knees without any special need due to the surface he’s crawling on. I say it each time but I have to say it again: it is so amazing to watch him develop and we celebrate with joy each time he does something he hadn’t been able to before. Children and amazing!
Yay, Joseph! Congratulations! Consider this a video request...please. :)
We have a video! It's just not on the computer yet . . . :(
I forgot to add -- what a good use of an ironing board. :)
Can I just say (with a smile) that the creeping vs. crawling lingo is so confusing! I would have said Lily was creeping when she was on her belly, and then began crawling when her belly was up off the ground, whereas you seem to mean the opposite. Anyway, it is very exciting and it's wonderful that Stephan can be there to share it.
Oh, and ditto about the ironing board. If I do that with our next baby it will probably be the most our board will have been used in 3 years. :)
It's the second time I've used the ironing board, I think. ;)
Sarah, you're right about terminology. One book uses it the way I do, but the rest of the world says the opposite. I would have stuck with the rest of the world, but when Joseph started moving forward so smoothly, I naturally said he was crawling. Then when he went to hands and knees, I felt I had to use another word, so I ended up using "creeping" but tried to always clarify with "hands and knees." Ah, language . . .
I believe the confusion started with the doctors, who, like lawyers, tend to use words differently from the rest of us. My understanding is that physical therapists, in particular, sometime back in history, designated the belly crawl as "crawling" and the hands-and-knees version as "creeping." But the general populace tended not to distinguish the two, calling both "crawling." If forced to distinguish, they logically associated creeping with the belly. I tend to use "crawling" as the more general term, but if distinguishing between the two, go with the technical terms.
But I'm not sure even the doctors make the distinction anymore. Since the Back to Sleep campaign, they don't seem to care much about it.
While visiting an apartment today Joseph met another 7-month-old who can crawl/creep whatever you want to call it. I was cheeky enough to ask if said baby slept on his tummy. The answer was yes . . .
