The Chase is On . . .

So, my baby, Emma has started crawling. About a month ago she started moving, and now she is constantly on the go. There are advantages and disadvantages to this stage.

One of my favorite things about it is watching Emma investigate the world. Everything is so exciting and new. She picks up each object she comes across, moves it from hand to hand, puts it in her mouth, bangs it, drops it, looks at it, picks it up, and then either carries it with her or throws it away, and moves on. The she finds two things next to each other, picks them up, bangs them together, rubs them against each other, and then drops them and moves on. I love watching baby's natural curiosity and experimental instinct developing.

I love watching how social our third child is. She loves to crawl into the middle of what ever the boys are playing with and just sit and watch and"socialize". She likes to follow Dad around until he picks her up, or pull up to standing on the edge of his chair to "visit" while he's working on the computer.

On the down side, we are in the throes of the diaper chase. Emma just wants to get up and crawl away when I lie her down to take off her diaper. This means chasing around a wet or, worse, dirty baby trying to get everything wiped off her without it getting spread everywhere else. I remember with Andrew, my first, I was so frustrated by this stage. This time around I have more of a sense of humour. I know its just a matter of time before she starts lying still for diaper changes again, so I just try to keep the mess to a minimum and wipe on the go.

Of course, the other famous down side of this stage is having a human carpet sweeper around. With two boys who love legos and Playmobil, this is a challenge. Emma loves to shove her mouth full of Playmobil hair and helmets, which are just the perfect size to get caught down her throat. It means a lot more vigilance about what is on the floor and in her mouth. I try to look on the positive and remind myself that its helping me keep things tidy and clean -- well, the floor is neat and tidy, anyway.

What do you love / hate about the crawling stage?

By the way, friends, this will be my (Jill's) last post for a few weeks. We are moving cross country, and I will be busy and then offline until close to the end of August. Looking forward to chatting again then.