Bulldozer

One of the most satisfying parts of being a parent is the opportunity to witness firsthand your child figuring things out on his own. It is such an intriguing process to watch. Sometimes it takes seconds or minutes for the light bulb to turn on over his head while other times it takes days, weeks or even months for things to finally click. But when they do it is such a proud moment. This learning process has never been more obvious to me than in recent weeks as Tucker is attempting with all his might to become mobile on his own. I say mobile because what he is doing is not quite yet crawling and to be honest if he were to have his way he would skip right over the whole event of crawling and even walking, and go straight to running if he could. But, thank God he can’t, so back to the process.

What has been so cool in watching him over the past few weeks is the trial and error he has been going through to get him to the stage he is at today. The first step, which happened weeks ago, was the ability to get himself over onto his stomach. Accomplished, although it did take some time for him to learn how to build up the momentum to push his way over that right shoulder and then get his arm out from underneath his body to avoid the many face plants he experienced along the way. Like I said trial and error.

Once his rolling became proficient, then came the building of arm strength so he could hold his head and body weight up with his arms. He used to get onto his belly and just drop his head onto the ground (face-down mind you) in utter defeat. He would moan and groan into the floor just long enough to scare the crap out of me and make me think he couldn’t get his head up and would suffocate. So that I would run over to grab him and just as I would go to upright him, he would lift his head up, look at me and smile. Only 5 months old at this point and already getting me to do his bidding.

It was right around this point that he started doing his seal wiggle. With belly down and both arms and legs in the air (he must have picked up that pose from me doing yoga during the whole pregnancy, it’s the only explanation) he would fling his arms to one side and legs to the other and squirm like a seal around the ground, not getting very far and becoming extremely discouraged. I would try and bend his knees under his belly at this point to show him the correct positioning, but he would only land on his face and wail, so I decided to stop doing that.

My next brilliant thought was to model crawling for him myself. So, whenever I was playing with him on the floor I would be sure to crawl around on my hands and knees to ensure that he was at least exposed to the proper technique. All I got in return was more seal.

Brilliant idea number three popped into my head when dog walked through the room. Aha! Tucker, watch the dog. He’s on all fours, see if you can copy him. As Tucker is enamored with the pup I thought this would be the perfect solution. And it worked, possibly coincidence, but I truly give Madden all the credit for sauntering about the house for Tucker to see. After days of dog modeling ,Tucker too began walking on all fours. Alright, maybe not a crawl and maybe walking is a bit of a stretch. But, he would get himself up on his hands and feet, butt straight up in the air. Then when he wanted to move, he would place his head on the ground, arms at his side and push with the soles of his feet full steam ahead. He looked like a bulldozer. Again trial and error. He realized quickly the error in this method as he only did it for about two days.

Over the past couple of days I’ve been watching the wheels turning as things suddenly start to make sense to him. First one knee comes up with the hands on the floor. The next day both knees come up but the head drops down. Then he gets both knees up with both hands down in perfect crawl formation, although with no clue as to where to go from here. Today, for the first time we got hands and knees and rocking back and forth. When this kid starts to move, it is going to blow his mind!

I think it’s going to blow my mind too. We haven’t even begun to childproof the house…we are going to be totally screwed.

Healthy. Happy. Loved.

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