Why am I not wanting her to crawl you may ask? There are many many reason I am dreading the day this little princess learn to crawl.
1.) 3 Children moving around in my house!! Enough said! It is complete madness with 2 tiny tornados going through the house, adding another one might result in a hurricane.
2.) I am honestly concerned about safety. We have been living in a world of boy toys and older boys who can reciete the mantra of "Only food goes in your mouth!" Abilene being so young has not yet had this drilled into her head, so she will not know that you can't digest or probably not even successfully swallow a lego. I have been working on training the boys to keep their small toys off the floor and hiding the toys I know that will be dangerous, but I know its only a temporary fix...after crawling the dreaded walking begins!
3.) Abilene is the perfect little baby right now. She is content to let me carry her around in the Ergo, sit in a high chair, or sit happily on her quilt playing with the toys in front of her. Once she discovers the world outside these little limits I have placed on her, I know she will want to move around ALL THE TIME! Yes, I know its good for babies to discover and it helps their development and blah, blah, blah...can I have a tantrum and stomp my foot and say "But I don't like it!!"
4.) She is more than likely my last baby. If I knew how to describe how sad this makes me I would be an amazing writer, but I can't even put words to the feeling of sadness it gives me at times. I want to enjoy her last weeks, if not days of being a true baby-baby. I know she will still be a baby after she starts to crawl, but it all just goes by way to fast.
As I am writing this I am looking back and realizing all the difference of the first child and the 3rd child. Its almost astonishing.
Max- I remember the day someone told me their 5 month old was crawling and I had a panic attack standing in that very spot while the person was still talking to me. I was thinking " Oh. my. god. My son is 6.5 months old and is not crawling!! What am I doing wrong? Have I damaged him? Does he have autism?!" I went home immediately and began what Reed referred to as "crawling drills." I begged and pleaded with this tiny little baby to "just give a little effort!" "take a chance!" and Reed's favorite, demostrated crawling across the living room until my knees were sore and I got quiet the workout. Max did learn to crawl, probably not from any of my efforts, just natural instincts of when he was ready.
Jerry- I was so excited for Jerry to learn to crawl! I was just counting down the day and waiting in anticipation for the big moment so that the boys could finally play together. I waited and waited and waited and that little joker NEVER crawled. He sat on his butt and scooted around like a little wounded soldier dragging his left leg behind him. It was hilarious, cute, and completely not normal, but I didn't care. By the time Jerry got here I knew this was just temporary and he would be walking like a normal person soon enough.
Abilene- I was out walking the other day and another mom stopped me and we did the normal progress report. You know what I mean, the thing all mothers do where you ask how their child is doing so you can compare milestones of their child to yours, all while pretending you are generally concerned with their child. Anyways, she informed me that her little man was already crawling all over the house! It took everything I had to not say, "oh my gosh I'm so sorry! " She was of course delighted to hear that Abilene was in fact not crawling and this made her son some sort of advanced wizard-genius crawling baby. Continue on with your walk delusional mom, you will soon see the light :)
It really is just a matter of days before Abilene starts crawling, I can see it in her eyes. I will of course get out the video camera, take pictures and praise her achievements to no end...absoluetly no different than my other 2 children, but hopefully I can stretch this no crawling stage out for at least one more week :)
Below are pictures of her getting incredibly close to just figuring it out on her own.
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| As much as I dread the crawling, her look of accomplishment is completely worth all the crawling worries. |
