The Creeping Has Begun

Well, about a month and a half after I was certain that our son would be crawling within the week, he has finally begun to creep his way forward across the floor.  He hasn't quite reached the crawling stage, but at this point, it can't be too far away.  The creeping began on Saturday, the day our son finally figured out how to coordinate his legs and arms in such a way that he can gain that forward momentum he has been seeking.  Its not crawling, mostly because he is not up on his hands and knees making consistent, coordinated movements between all four limbs to reach a desired destination.  Rather, in an attempt to reach an object in front of him, he stretches out one arm as far as possible, tucks the other underneath his chest, and pushes forward with his feet, gaining a few inches at a time.  If he has not gotten close enough to reach the desired object, he repeats the maneuver alternating his arms.  He creeps, reaches, creeps some more, reaches, until he gets to his toy or whatever it is that he wants.  It is amazing to watch him, the effort that he puts into what we would consider a simple action, and keep on trying till he reaches a point of frustration.  Just over the past two days he has increased the speed with which he is creeping and is raising his chest higher and higher off the ground as he does so.  The look of determination on his face is priceless.  I only hope that he maintains that determination and drive with whatever he does. 

It is sometimes a funny to watch him creep forward, or I should say, attempt to crawl.  At times, in the middle of one of his creeps, his butt will fly into the air, his legs continuing to push forward to the point where they completely straighten out (in yoga terms, this would be downward dog minus the straightened arms), and then falls to one side or the other for lack of balance.  I can't help but laugh sometimes at the startled look on his face that remains for only a few second before he realizes what he did, flips back onto his stomach, and again begins his attempt at forward movement.  Outside of his creeping and attempted crawling, we also had a grand experiment this weekend in which we attempted feeding him solid foods.  At this point, I am really not sure what he thinks about the food.  On Saturday we tried feeding him soft, mashed up avocado.  The first attempt we made simply made us laugh.  At first he looked all excited that we were going to put something in his mouth as that is where everything ends up right now.  Once the plastic spoon with a dash of avocado on it passed his lips, his face grew worried, then scrunched up almost in disgust.  He didn't spit it right out, I actually think he swallowed a little, but the two attempts we made immediately following the first merely increased his look of disgust and while the food made it past his lips and got swirled around in his mouth, it came back out in the form of drool.  That did it for the first attempt. 

Chalking it up to his mood, we figured we would try again in the afternoon.  His face didn't show as many signs of disgust as it did in the morning, but he was still quite uncertain as to what he was supposed to do with the food and I am quite sure he didn't know what to make of the taste.  Keep in mind that up until this point, the only real food to pass his lips had been breast milk.  Aside from that, it has just been a variety of toys, cardboard, tags, and whatnot that has received the official taste test from our son.  So after the second attempt with avocado, we decided to switch it up for Sunday figuring maybe a something different would please him more.  So we tried mushed up banana.  Well, needless to say, we only tried it once yesterday.  We think he ate a little smidgen of it, but that was it and after the first spoonful, he wasn't that excited and any banana exited as drool, just as the avocado had done.  So our first attempts at food, while not failing entirely, didn't really gain the excitement that we expected from our son.  But a little at a time, he will figure it out.  I guess he just needs to acquire a taste for solid foods and figure out what to do with them.  We will stick with the banana for now and see how that works out.  Another attempt today, at least one, maybe two and we will see where tomorrow leads us.  So that pretty much sums up the exciting baby news from this weekend.  Till tomorrow, enjoy the day and be well!