Timeline of mobility

Babies start off with fewer movement capabilities than slugs.

The evolution of a baby's ability to move is always an interesting topic among those for whom it's the safest subject of a baby's development (in other words, poop, though a fascinating thing for new parents, is not the sort of thing one should bring up at dinner parties) so I present to you, Freida's Mobility Timeline.

The Back Scoot -- This one was pure accident. If I put her on a blanket on a wood floor, some movement was bound to occur. She could move mere centimeters but they were gleefully noted and phoned about.

The Front Scoot -- This one was more significant in that it was voluntary. It often begins when the poor little squirt accidentally flips a toy beyond the reach of her flailing arms. If it is a particularly favored toy, its recovery will induce thrown weight via the aforementioned flailing arms, which can lead to not only minimal shifting of position, but also a poked eye or swatted sibling (if said sibling is unfortunate enough to be closely observing the flailing of the arms, which is vastly amusing).

The Unassisted Sit -- This one is really a wonderful milestone. Freida achieved this at a moderate age (roughly 5 months) and mastered it quickly, given that failure to sit correctly invariably meant rough and sudden cranial contact with our (very cold, very hard) wood floors. Sitting her on a blanket was helpful but the older kids often tracked debris across the blanket and F had a rather disconcerting tendency to gather huge bunches of the blanket with her flailing arms in an apparent attempt to eat the whole thing at once. This led to gagging, crying, and general vociferous baby misery.

The Stomach-to-Sitting Maneuver -- This was accomplished as she was progressing along the natural course of muscle development on the road to crawling via getting up on her knees. Her feet have far more traction when she wears socks with treads and one day she found that it was more fun to get on her hands and feet than her hands and knees. This led to pushing up with her hands and eventually she was shocked to find herself in a sitting position. I was shocked, too.

The Sitting-to-Stomach Tragedy... I mean, Maneuver -- There's nothing like learning to get from ones rear to ones stomach to bloody a baby's nose or put bruises on her peachy forehead. Of course, she eventually had to learn the reverse of the Stomach-to-Sitting Maneuver so she could continue to experience the thrill of lifting herself above her previous lot and triumph over her confinement to belly during the dreaded "tummy time" those parents seemed to think was so important. Once she achieved these milestones, she was no longer subject to what others thought she should be doing with her time on the floor.

Sit Ups -- During diaper time, she discovered that if I held down her feet, she could do a sit up. She loved doing them, in fact, and could do many in a row (no babies are not playthings, but they sure are amusing when they're either determined or having fun. Yes, I would push her back onto her back and have her sit up again. A few times.) and she quickly become so good at them and amused at my frustration while changing her diaper, that it became solid muscle memory to sit up every time someone held down her feet.

Pulling Herself Up -- The natural progression from the sit up was the pull up. As soon as she could sit up, she would grab my shirt (which is a skill every nursing baby masters by the time they are two days old) and haul herself to a standing position. She loves to stand and grins hugely while doing so. She began to haul herself up on pant legs, furniture, laundry baskets, and short people's hair if it was handy.

Finally, last night she performed the One-Third-Crawl, One-Third-Walk, One-Third-Igor Ambulation -- This involved crawling with one knee, one foot, and both hands on the floor while she was hunched up to accommodate her odd leg positions. She is, officially, mobile. But I don't know if I can say that she's a crawler.

And, she has yet to roll over. Yes, folks, she's 7.5 months old, mobile, and cannot roll. She's basically a turtle who can do sit ups. She's even taking steps when her hands are firmly affixed to a stable surface. Her Back Scoot is marvelous in form and speed, and yet she can flip neither from front to back nor back to front.

Funny kid. She'll get it some day.

M&M's

Man is out processing this week, so he has been sorting through his issued items and generally making sure all of his professional equipment/supplies are in good order. While he did that, I did some of my own out processing. Here's the rundown:

10:00 - Drop hideous, large outside toy at the dumpster outside our neighborhood.
10:10 - Run to Dr's office to get medical records. Find out they will make them while I wait!!
10:30 - Run to next Dr's office to get more medical records. Stop to chat with the parking lot attendant who is former military.
11:00 - Run to hospital for more medical records, where they are offering free small bottles of hand sanitizer to everyone who walks in the door. Yay! I had Princess with me so we both used some. Ugh, it was the kind that stays sticky and slimy for a long time afterward. Blech.
11:45 - Run to Costco, refill glasses cleaner solution, find two items I need (and pick up and put back about 30 items I don't need but WANT WANT WANT). Try to pay with debit card. Crap, wrong PIN three times in a row. Go out to car, use cell phone to call bank and tell them to reactivate my card. Go back and try again, realize that I was trying the wrong PIN the whole time. Slap forehead.
1:00 - (yes, Costco really took that long. It's all in the samples and window shopping) Target to see if school supplies are on sale yet. Nope, but we grabbed a bag of peanut butter M&M's anyway.
1:20 - I dump some M&M's into my (recently thoroughly cleaned) cupholder and hand the bag to Princess. We work our way to the highway and find a high school aged girl on the street corner, begging for food. It's a very common beggar hangout. My window was open so I call out "I don't have cash, but I can give you some Peanut Butter M&M's." She says "oh, ok..." so I reach over into the cupholder, grab her a handful, and hand them over. I was amused to see that the hand sanitizer was still, erm, sticky, so I had to work the last few of them off my hand. Eeeeeeeeww. Then it occurred to me that maybe she thought I had meant an unopened bag of candy. I drove away, knowing I had given what I had available to me. And laughing. And feeling sorry for that young woman who thought that begging was something she felt she had to do.
1:30 - Drop off batteries for recycling, grab some chicken for dinner.
2:00 - Recount to Man the M&M thing. "Well," he said. "Beggar's can't be choosers. It was food." -shrug- Feed baby to sleep then take off again, this time bringing Tag.
2:45 - Run to the next city over to grab more medical records which I requested last week.
3:30 - Stop at WalMart to see if their school supplies are on sale yet. Tag saw the lunch bag that he promised himself to in the pre-mortal life. I offered to buy it for him next week during the sales. He chooses instant gratification and uses his allowance. Whatever. You go, kid.
3:50 - Home again, home again, in time to find Man mostly organized and dashing off to outprocess from the Commissary, PX, and ACS.

Whew! I like this swapping kids thing. It makes errands bearable!! Can you imagine 6 hours worth of driving errands with 4 kids in tow? You can't? Me neither. Every time I try, I get another bowl of ice cream out.

Her slipper

Cassi B gave birth to her baby boy a month before my sweet little girl was born. There were a lot of babies being born at that point, to the tune of 5 per month. Those young military Mormons sure do know how to turn out babies. Many of us mothers sort of got lost in the shuffle of taking meals hither and yon, gifts of baby blankets, sleep deprivation, and absence from church while we waited out RSV season before taking our babies out in public.

Cassi and her husband, Noel, had gone through quite a bit to find each other. She brought five children from a previous marriage that ended in ashes and bitter pain. I don't know his history. This was their first baby together and they talked about her pregnancy with dreamy half smiles and wonder. They're still newly-weds of less than 2 years.

I saw Cassi after I started going back to church myself but never did see their baby boy. I asked her once how he was doing. "He has heart problems and hasn't left the hospital yet. He's scheduled for surgery soon." My heart ached for this mother who had already endured so much but kept a serious but tender countenance. I cradled my own sweet, perfectly formed child and silently grieved and feared for her.

The months flew by and Frieda started eating solids, scooting like a remote controlled zippy car (except the Manufacturer forgot to give us her remote control), making raspberries, and turning her head and smiling when we called her name. I saw Cassi again about a month ago, still without her child. My heart sank as I thought about what her baby would be doing, at a month older. I wondered if he were somewhere in a hospital, perhaps sedated, perhaps recovering from his latest procedure. Maybe he was home with his father until he was strong enough to come out of the house... but there was Noel, breaking up a quiet squabble and holding one of the younger children he had so bravely and so lovingly come to call his own.

Friend C had been (and I presume, still is) on a knitting rampage over the past few months. Not a week went by that didn't produce at least one project from her flying fingers and Freida has been the lucky recipient of some of the fruits of her industry. She loves to chew on her little pink, garter-stitch slippers with the pink, satiny laces. I've had to put the laces in a square knot to keep them on her feet but her determination often means that they get kicked off anyway. The laces always end up in her eager maw, one end hanging out as her glowing eyes cheerfully declare victory over the humble square knot and survey her domain with her bad self, her mouth working furiously on the jumble of ribbon and new teeth.

We all went to the park one day, taking a little friend with us. There, playing a lively game of tag, was the B family. I admired how every member of the family, including the oldest boy, played tag, debated the rules, called out "no tag backs!", and ran about having a great time. I said hi to Cassi who explained that they were trying to get them all worn out before she had to go to work that evening for her 12 hour shift as a nurse. We chatted and laughed and smiled when the older kids slowed up their running a bit for the little kids, pushed each other on the swing, and found clever ways to avoid being caught. Then someone rushed over to tag Cassi and she ran away, laughing with a real sparkle in her eye. Neither of us even mentioned her absent baby, and I wondered again.

The little friend we took to the park is a marvelous little guy and he and my son occasionally butt heads. I broke up a couple of arguments but they mostly played very nicely together. Frieda was wearing down from the outing and I was trying to keep those slippers on her feet as she kicked her legs and hung out of her stroller as far as she could in an odd attempt to capture that elusive and tasty footwear. I finally relented and gave her a footless slipper to keep her happy and buy time for everyone else who wanted to stay longer. I then heard another disagreement across the park and ran over to see what the issue was. I heard Freida yelling in chagrin as her hard-won prize fell to the ground, right where she could see it. I ignored her while I sorted out the boys and, as I turned back to take care of the baby, saw Noel quickly and quietly pick up her slipper and offer it to her. She gleefully took it and gnawed away with vigor. He paused, stroked her hair, and gazed at her bright, happy face. I stood transfixed. Without looking at me, he ran to his van where his family waited for him so they could go home and have a family siesta. I continued standing, watching Freida and wondering, and somehow felt tears in my throat.

Just this past Sunday we had a funny exercise in class where we all had to stand up and say one need that we had. There were some interesting ones ("spring form pan", "husband", "play dates for my kids") and some borderline sappy ones ("please give me missionary opportunities!", "please, let me come clean your house for free", or "I'm so blessed by God and don't need a thing") so I bent over my knitting and tuned out the exercise (mine was "hey, my name is Annie and I'm moving soon. So, any of that helping with move stuff is great.") until I heard Cassi's voice. She was sitting in the front row with her beautiful daughter who was having a hard time in nursery that day. She stood and the room fell silent. She introduced herself and said "I would just like more service opportunities to help give back some of the outpouring of love we experienced when our son passed away. Thank you."

I recalled Noel and the look on his face. And then I realized that, for that brief moment, Frieda wasn't just my baby. That moment that I didn't choose beforehand, that I didn't engineer in the slightest, was a moment for my child to mean something extraordinary to someone else. And though I mourned for those parents who mourned, I'm so grateful that Frieda would share her babyness with someone who sorely needed to touch that, however briefly.