Baby Steps

Yesterday, I came to terms with my own fears and did something that I really haven't done since Noni has started to become more mobile:  Let her crawl on the floor! Yes, I know this is sort of a "Well, duh!" moment,  but  in my last post I expressed concerns about her falling over and bumping her head, since the tiled floor in our current residence is so hard.  Prior to yesterday, my technique was to cover a section of the floor with several blankets and pillows and put her there to play just in case she fell over.  Or, if she was on the floor without cushion, I was holding on to her.  Well, that's just starting to get old as she wants to move about more and more.  Plus. it's just not completely realistic.

So, I put her on the tile, and it was like she was freed from bondage.  The child--half crawling, half walking--made her way to various points in the room and let me know by way of her actions that this ability to move around (mostly) unrestricted is what's been missing from her day to day activity.  What's more, I realized that her intelligence as a baby prevents her from falling all over the place when she's focused on crawling.  Every time that it seemed as though she'd lose her balance and topple over, she quickly caught herself and remained upright.  What's more, she's very careful about how she moves about.  Even when she went over to pull herself up to stand at any piece of furniture, she didn't fall and hit her head a single time.  

My fears have been abated.  She's got this.

Here are a few action shots from a recording I did yesterday.

The crawl-walk stance.

She realized I was recording and headed back my way to try and take the camera, something she likes to do. 

Standing to reach for the camera while using my leg as a prop. 

Standing, hands-free, for about 3 seconds!

It was so fun watching her explore, and now it's really time for us to start safe-proofing areas that are in her reach when she's playing on the floor, because as far as she's concerned, NOTHING is off limits.

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While I've become more comfortable with Noni being on the hard floor, I did come across a product that I'd still like to get to put down there.  

One of these educational foam mats would work perfectly.  The individual squares come apart, and the letters and numbers come out of the squares (at least on some of the mats), which will be useful once we get further into our learning activities.  Plus, she looooves color, so this would be great. 

We'll order one soon, but for now it feels good to loosen up a bit and when it comes to something that comes so naturally and just let her be. 

B