Another Goal Accomplished

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Having a mobile baby changes everything. This week naps have gone from two a day that lasted 45 minutes to sometimes 2 hours to one a day that lasts 20-30 minutes. The rest of the time Caterpillar Girl is moving, moving, moving. Therefore, blog updates are admittedly late in coming.

A few months back, when Caterpillar Girl first began to scoot, she fell out of the bed during nap time. Beyond surprise, she wasn't hurt because our bed is on the floor and the drop is about 13 inches. I wondered when children learned not to fall out of bed. She fell 2 more times, and then she figured out what the edges of the bed meant. She has spent the last few weeks circumnavigating the bed, looking over the edges with a determined look. She especially liked to crawl to the chest at the foot of the bed to look over the edges on that surface. Often I placed her on the bed while dressing in the morning--an easy way to keep her contained. Well, this morning, she did it. She finally turned backward, half slipped, half reached with one foot, bump onto the butt, and she was off the bed and on the floor. A small "hmmph" and then she was off crawling towards the door and out of the bedroom.

Because I haven't been able to post as often, I have a few more actions to remember that don't really lend themselves to pictures. Hopefully, I can type this up before she destroys every book on the shelf by my feet.

• Steve Wonder shake: She has a new movement where she shakes her head back and forth like Stevie Wonder. I might have been worried that she had poor vision if it weren't for the teeny tiny bits of whatever she constantly finds on the carpet, no matter how much I vacuum.
• Hi: Daddy has been teaching her to wave and she finally has the hang of it. She vocalizes something that sounds like "Hi" and stretches her arm straight out and moves in around in a circle or up and down. She does it to her daddy the most (so much so that we think she might think his name is HI), but she also does it to herself in the mirror and other random times of the day.
• Where is it?: About two weeks ago, she found something under a cloth. I have been putting a toy under a cloth in front of her and asking "Where is it?" For a few weeks, she just reached for another toy she could see nearby, but now she will lift the cloth to get to the toy under it.
• Table trot: Caterpillar Girl has been pulling herself up on pretty much anything she can reach: couch, coffee table, bed, the wall, shelves in the library. The past day or two though, she has been really stepping it up. She spent much of yesterday afternoon pulling up on the coffee table and then holding on to walk around it.
• The fling: I think she is getting ready to take that ultimate first step. For now though, she flings herself forward. Caterpillar Girl pulls herself up on something and sees you a foot away, holds out her arms, and dives toward you. Another version is crouching with knees bent and hands on the floor in front of her, and then catapaulting onto you.