She's a Sitter

So, it's been ten days to two weeks since Norah became a consistent sitter, and I'm just now getting around to mentioning it. It's sort of a big deal, really.


For one, it means that we can sit her down when we bring her somewhere instead of having to lie her on her back. This opens up a wide variety of options for places that she can be, now. Also, it meant that we could swap out her baby carrier for the car for a car seat. Technically, we could have been using the car seat all along because it's a transitional one that can be used from infancy up to like three years of age. That was what we did with Gabe, but we frequently regretted it through much of that first year. On the one hand, it's nice not buying a car seat that you're going to have to get rid of in a few months (because the damn things aren't cheap). On the other, you're stuck with a loose baby everywhere you go. With the carriers, you have a handy, dandy storage space for your infant. You can set it on a high chair if you're in a restaurant, you can balance it on the "child accommodation" built into shopping carts, you can use it to prop open a door while you carrying things in from the car. There's no end to the uses--but the most important part is that you don't have to carry the baby ALL the time. After buying one for Norah, I would have to say that, despite the fact that it was only useful for eight months, it was definitely worth the money. We were actually able to eat out a few times with her--something we didn't do with Gabe until he was old enough to sit in a high chair on his own because the prospects of trying to hold a grabby child on our laps while we ate was about as appealing as a dried fish sandwich.

Now that she can sit on her own, though, we decided it was time to upgrade her seat--and not a moment too soon, really. As big as she is, she was positively spilling over the edges of her carrier.

She still can't crawl, only scoot herself backwards, but she's made it to the "revving" stage--where she'll get herself up on her hands and knees and rock herself back and forth. Gabe never really did this. He preferred the "high centered" stage where he laid on his belly and flailed his arms and legs around like he was the world's foremost expert on the perpetual, inverted snow angel. That didn't last long, though, as his eagerness to get at everything soon coaxed his motor skills to exceed their natural development speeds. Well, sort of. He DID tend to crawl his way into a lot of head first collisions with the walls and furniture, so his motor skills weren't ALL there.

Now that she can sit, though, it probably won't be long before she figures out how to crawl. Frankly, I'm looking more forward to her figuring out to move from being on her belly to sitting and vice versa. Right now, when she gets tired of sitting, her preferred method of proning herself on the floor is still the Nestea Plunge her way backwards, usually onto whatever toy she's thrown behind her. This leads to much crying and gnashing of teeth. And a few bumps on her head. I keep thinking that each painful experience will HAVE to be the one that will teach her the valuable lesson of "looking before she Plunges," but so far it hasn't.

Honestly, every day I marvel at the fact that our species has survived when we are so completely stupid and useless for such a long period after we're born. I mean that in the nicest way, of course. I don't hold it against infants for being stupid and useless, I'm just stating an indisputable fact. A baby foal can walk within a day. A DAY! How is it that we have fallen so far down the evolutionary chain when it comes to our development? Is it our big brains? Did our stupid opposable thumbs set all this in motion? I'm sure it's the big brains. Of course it is. Stupid brains. Nothing but trouble. What I wouldn't give, sometimes, for the simple life of walking when I'm one day old and not having to worry about anything but finding a puddle of water to drink from and a shady patch of grass to eat. Instead, I have TOOLS!

Wow, that was quite a digression.

Anyway, here's a video of Gabe "reading" to Norah. When I took the picture of her, he insisted that I take one of him, too. Instead, I talked him into reading to her, sort of.

No donuts or cupcakes followed. He had a bit of a weekend of gorging. With all the family stuff going on, we had cake and donuts and what-not all over the house, and Gabe ate more than his fair share. Before I took this video, though, he had already eaten the last cupcake, and the last donut had been eaten the day before.