R has been doing an army crawl since Mother’s Day. He had been working on moving for quite awhile, doing the fish out of water swim on his belly, and it finally clicked, possibly with warmer weather and thus bare feet and legs, how to go forward. He’s gotten progressively better at it and when he takes off can now be pretty fast. He’s started to also get up on his hands and knees. He’ll rock a bit, use the extra height to check things out, but gets back down on his belly to take off.
This means it’s been more than a month of watching him closely. Of only getting most productive things done while he’s napping. It is always surprising a bit just what all they can get into and where all they can go. It does not help that C has a lot of little toys only safe for kids over 3 years old, and everything that R can grab gets chewed on. Of course, sister’s toys always look more fun. Or that being a tiny baby he’ll crawl under furniture, C’s play table, the real table, he’s almost manged to get under our futon couch a few times. Also, a baby crawling on his belly picks up ALL the dog hair. My old dog sheds like crazy, I clean the floors and there’s hair again the second the vacuum turns off.
I think we may have finally managed an okay system. I had set up a play space for him, but he of course only likes that for a bit, and it’s out of the usual view of mommy. A gate at the hallway more to keep C mindful of keeping her toys closer to her room than R out of the hallway seems to be helping. That leaves the living room and sometimes kitchen/dining room for him to explore. Plenty of space and now mostly baby-safe if he’s watched.
I did not miss that phase of must-never-leave-them alone. I passed that with C a year or two ago and as long as I can hear her I don’t need constant eyes on her. Not so with R right now, and I remember how it only gets worse. He’s on his belly, so most things are out of reach. But he’ll likely get himself to crawling properly soon, then move on to pulling up, standing and cruising. Then, they take off walking and it’s all over. Hopefully I have half a year before he’s to walking, hopefully.
Mommy Over-educated 