Crawling


Around Christmas time, Charlotte began getting up on her hands and knees, rocking back and forth. After a while, this rocking turned to crawling--backwards. In no time, Charlotte began making her way around the room, but always in reverse.

Just yesterday, something clicked. Jeff and Charlotte were playing with a ball on the floor, sitting up a few paces apart. Charlotte decided she wanted to get to Jeff, got down on her hands and knees, and...crawled! In a forward direction!

It was a little stop-and-go, and she did a face plant after her first attempt. But she wasn't discouraged, and tried again. When I got home from school, she crawled to me. Now it's just a day later and she's already much better at it, almost a smooth crawler.

One lesson I take from this experience is that babies will do things in their own time. I felt weird every time someone would ask "Is she crawling?" and I would respond, "Yep, but only backwards." I know that crawling isn't even considered a developmental step for babies because so many skip it, never do it, or do some variation of it (creeping, army-crawling, rolling, etc.) All the weeks of reverse crawling that led up to this sudden forward motion were practice, warm-up for the big event, which she did when she was ready for it.