Our World is Changing Quickly

A couple of weeks ago, Ethan started crawling. It was slow at first and basically an army crawl, but he is getting faster and faster as the days go by, and he is now up on his hands and knees more often. While I took care of most of the baby proofing around the house before he actually started moving, he is getting himself into things that he shouldn't, so we are learning the boundaries and the meaning of "no." It seems that things he is not allowed to play with are the most fascinating, such as computer cords.

I anticipated that Ethan would LOVE his new freedom and independence once he started crawling, so it has been a surprise that he has suddenly become very clingy to Mommy. He does not like me to get very far away from him, and he sometimes cries even when I take a few steps away from him, still within plain sight. Gradually, he is starting to figure out that he can follow me if I walk into a different room, but he usually whines and cries all the way. He constantly crawls into my lap while we are playing on the floor but typically only stays put for a few seconds before he is off to grab another toy.

Around the same time that he started crawling, he also started napping better during the day and sleeping longer at night. While he has generally been a great nighttime sleeper anyway, he has now started sleeping 11-12 hours most nights. He generally takes an hour and a half to two hour nap in the middle of the day (along with a shorter morning nap) as well. Since this child has generally not slept more than 30-40 minutes at one time during the day, this has been a wonderful and unexpected relief. I had come to the conclusion that he was never going to be a napper, but the times are changing.

His first year is passing by quickly, and he is changing so fast and gaining new skills all the time. We have his 9-month well baby check in a couple of weeks. I know that he is about 21.5 pounds now, but I am not sure what his length is...just tall.