I learned a valuable thing this morning that many parents already know: a box can be a source of great entertainment for a child. And Kent is even too young to imagine it as a house, a TV, a stage, etc. He just loved chewing on the edges, sitting down in it and trying to pull himself up, and then having me flip it over so he could stand up and bang on the top of it. It entertained him for about 20 minutes, which is pretty rare for any object around here.

In the past week, I've been blown away by his development. On Thursday, he was sitting up and playing with some blocks, when he suddenly seemed really agitated and kind of reached out his hands toward me. I thought he wanted to be picked up, so I held out my hands, and he grabbed onto my index fingers, pulled himself up into a standing position, and held my hands as he walked right over into my lap. I was so excited in my praise of him that I started to cry. We had done some really shaky walking earlier in the week, but on Thursday, he apparently decided that he was ready to stand when HE wanted to, and he hasn't looked back since. It's sort of the default action now when he's sitting up — he'll grab my fingers if they get anywhere close to him and pull himself up in one fluid motion, and I barely have to help him. My back is aching a bit from all the stooping to help him walk around the house, but he's getting so good at walking with our help and loves every minute of it. It seems to have come from nowhere, too, which makes it even more surprising.

In other mobility news, he's officially crawling. He had been scooting around on his belly and also crawling backward, kind of in a circle (which was pretty entertaining to us), for over a month, never quite coordinating all his limbs, and I even told my grandmother on the phone that I thought Kent was going to skip crawling altogether. Friday, though, it suddenly clicked for him and he started crawling forward, purposefully and with great excitement. Jack came home while I was cooking dinner, and I said, "Oh, by the way, he's crawling now!" It's kind of a hybrid crawl: half army crawl, where he goes elbow-over-elbow on his belly, and half traditional crawl, where he's on his hands and knees. We're now at the point where I worry about leaving him by himself for even a minute while I run to the bathroom or to get something I've left in another room. He's almost unstoppable.

He's started pulling up on tables and our low windowsills, and even though he still needs some help, he'll be doing it alone in no time at all, I'm sure. Foam bumpers are now appearing all over the house. And this has all come about in the last week. I'm dizzy from the excitement of it all, and Kent couldn't be more pleased with himself.

Oh, and he's also taking longer naps, an hour or two on most days with another 30-minute-ish nap at some point. His nighttime sleep is getting better, too, though it's still hit-or-miss. We had a 6-hour stretch the other night, but then last night, he was back to waking every couple of hours for most of the night. We can't count on good sleep every night, but it's so much better than it had been around Christmas that Jack and I are both ecstatic (though I'd be happier if Kent's waking time were later than 6:30 a.m. Daylight savings time only fooled him for two days, then he was back to 6:30 this morning).

I don't think we did anything to affect his sleep — maybe it's the relief of finally being more mobile that has allowed him to settle into sleep for longer periods. We jokingly refer to these plateau-like stages as "developmental ennui". I'm sure he won't be in a plateau for long before he starts running after the cats, then juggling flaming torches on a unicycle and writing symphonies.

Labels: Kent

• posted by erica 3/11/2008 01:32:00 PM
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