Cruisin’ into 2010!

Yes she is!    These past two weeks have been absolutely amazing in terms of a developmental spurt with Hannah.  I had been holding off sharing it because it just seemed to good to be true, and I didn’t want to jinx it.  But she is doing these things more and more that I really believe that she finally has “got it!”

• Initiation. Hannah FINALLY has figured out that if she wants to get something that is more than a few feet away from her that she can crawl over to get it!    Many times she has crawled to her favorite toy table, favorite toys, and even crawled over to Daddy and pulled on his chair while he was working at his desk.  The days of being able to leave Hannah in a spot and go do something for a couple of minutes (like make a bottle) are over — she is a mover now!
• Crawling. She can now go 5 or 6 feet crawling on all fours now.    It seems now every time she wants to move somewhere she STARTS with a regular crawl instead of a commando crawl!  She may end up in a commando crawl within a few feet of crawling because she gets too tired, but she is definitely on all fours now!
• Pulling to stand. Many, many, many times now she has crawled over to something like the ottoman, couch, or Mommy or Daddy and pulled herself up to a stand!   The first time Daddy and I were talking about something and Hannah was lying near the ottoman on the floor with a toy.  A couple minutes later, she is standing up holding the ottoman and grabbing her pacifier off the top of the ottoman!  We were stunned, and I almost started crying because I was so happy.  Then she did it again, and again, and again.  She definitely can do it on her own.
• Cruising. She is also mastering the art of cruising too!  She cruises along the couch, along daddy’s and mommy’s legs, around a table.  She has even figured out corners and curves.
• Holding her own bottle. We have been trying to teach her to feed herself with her bottle for almost a year using those Avent bottle holders.   Within the past couple of weeks, she has not only figured out how to hold it but to maneuver it to get more food.   You can’t imagine how awesome it feels to just be able to give her a bottle, and she will feed herself.

It has been an absolutely amazing couple of weeks with her.  Within less than a month we went from an immobile child who would never try to move anywhere even if she wanted something (she would just cry until it was brought to her) to a child who is always on her feet, always on the move, and doesn’t like to be tied down to something (like her exersaucer, those days are now numbered!).

This video was taken the day after Christmas when she first started crawling to toys she wanted to go. Before this, she NEVER would initiate movement outside of a couple of feet to play with a toy or get something. THEN on top of that, she pulls herself to her knees to play!  She has done so much more since then that I haven’t even taken video of it yet, but I definitely will!