Her Sole Intention is Learning To Crawl

I came home last night to find we'd hit another milestone, Sophie had worked out how to crawl.

Well, not exactly how to crawl, but she had an idea about how a baby might be able to move across a rug. Like a jigsaw puzzle, she has all the parts and it's only a mattter of time before she puts them together in the right order.

One arm forward.
Then the other arm.
Or was it the leg?
No, pretty sure it was the arm.
Or both arms?
Oh dear, that doesn't feel right.
Splat.
etc.

It's so hard to watch, she knows all the individual parts of crawling, but just can't link them together. And (being a man) all I want to do is to solve her problem, to explain how it all goes together, to take over completely and do it for her. But that's not going to help - I know this because I tried.

I tried demonstrating by crawling across the lawn. I tried sitting down and talking her through the process. I tried encouragement. I moved her arms and legs for her. Then my wife tried to make me realise there can be few things more pitiful than the attempts of a man of 35 trying to teach a six month old baby how to crawl.

So, in spite of my efforts, for the moment we're safe. But the kiddie locks for the cupboards will be taken out of their packaging this weekend and anything mouth sized or "push overable" will be taken off the floor. Six months on, the realisation of what I've done is still finding new ways to hit me.