Brothers

Sigh

At least once a week I flip my wedding rings upside down to remind myself to do something important. Then I look at them the next day and have NO IDEA WHAT THAT THING IS! Moral of the story? Never leave the iPad behind...

Vasco da Gama

It has been about ten days since D learned to crawl, and we have seen a complete shift in how he views both the activity and his world. The first couple days, he was so proud of himself for accomplishing the actuality of crawling. The act itself was his reward. Then on the morning of day four he was at one end of the hallway and I was at the other. He looked at me and started to crawl. As he realized he was making himself get closer to me, he started laughing his head off. At this point he started using his new-found skill to move from point A to point B. Want a toy? Crawl to it! Want to investigate the stationary mass of hair and drool? Crawl to it! (Roland is less excited about D's new-found skill). Watching him piece together the skill with what the skill allowed him to do, I started pontificating on what his spatial understanding of the world has likely been to date. He would exist in a particular location until somebody moved him to the next location. He had great familiarity with many common places (the living room, his bedroom, school, etc.), but not necessarily the idea that those places have some sort of relationship with each other. Last night we saw a sudden shift in his locomotory behavior. Rather than crawling to see us or a toy, he started crawling to explore. He kept crawling out and back and out and back, starting with a known location and heading to the unknown. As I watched him completely let go of his intense need to be near me at all times in favor of exploration, I realized that he was probably starting to build a map of his environment. In the span of 10 days, we have watched his entire perception of how the world is pieced together change. There are so many aspects of parenting that blow my mind, and this one is definitely at the top of the list. Here's hoping he has Daddy's spatial mapping skills, and not mine!

Little Locomotion

The downside of  a crawling baby: he can spit-up in random and unexpected locations.
The upside of a crawling baby: he cleans it up as he painstakingly drags his legs through the mess.

... Now all we need is a microfiber baby suit and he can mop the floors...

Houston We Have Mobility