Standing Room Only

Juliette has still not started crawling (fine by us!) but she’s certainly trying hard to walk.

Lately when she’s left on the floor, she’ll do a modified bum-scoot to quickly get herself where she wants to be. This is different from the bum-swing-shuffle she started doing a few weeks ago – she now leans forward on both hands then gets her back end up on one knee and one foot. She pushes with the foot and walks her hands forward, then either switches sides or uses the same foot to push again. It’s surprisingly effective and fast – much much faster than the bum-swing she was doing before. She can cross the floor in under 30 seconds, which means we have to pay attention now!

Once she gets to where she wants – usually the swinging crade stand, the couch, her high-chair – anything she can reach up and pull on, she starts to work getting into a standing position.

And she does manage to stand up 70% of the time. She’s doing it several times in a row, collapsing on her bum when she’s tired.

The alarming thing we witnessed today is that she’s learning how to take steps while holding on to something! Though she can’t stay balanced on her feet without holding on to something solid, she now knows how to hold on and take a step or two in either direction.

I kind of hope she crawls first. Our home is definitely not baby-safe and we’ve done precious little baby-proofing. I think our first attempts will be to use the baby fence that our friends lent us… so we can make a little baby-prison for her. I’m sure she’s going to love that!