April 20, 2006

New Skillz

Nathan taught himself a new skill yesterday.

He's been able to pull himself to a standing position for several weeks now, but it was a dead-end skill until yesterday. Many times he'd wind up stranded in a standing position with no pain-free alternative. He had to take a fall or die standing.

It was fascinating to me to watch his little brain at work yesterday. Holding onto the exersaucer with one hand, he bent his legs gradually, wobbled down into a lower and lower squat, then (when his diaper-clad butt was a few inches above the carpet) let go and landed with a bump in a seating position. He looked so pleased with himself I just had to laugh.

What made it even more interesting to me was that he crawled a short distance away, then turned back to the exersaucer, pulled himself up, and immediately went through the whole balance-squat-fall routine again. He did that a few times, practicing his new skill until it felt less like an accident.

Just like in the picture below, he looked for all the world like a baby mechanic working over his ailing vehicle as he gummed the edge of the upper tray, crawled around it, pulled himself up on it and made sure the tray toys were all in working order.







"Want me to check th' oil for you, too, ma'am?"

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