Charlie, Fast-Forward

Charlie’s first beach sunset

While Charlie's development has been slow, due to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, I haven’t given up hope for him to catch up. Daughter Dearest was a preemie, and spent her first six months mostly passive (although she would laugh and play with her parents). All that changed the day we put in her a walker, and she figured out she could kick to crash into The Boy's push-trike. From then on, it was fast-forward for DD—that mobility boost was all it took.

Charlie has been—with the therapist and us helping—working on crawling for a while now. Up until last week, he would almost do it. Then, while on vacation… he got it. And immediately wanted to get on the floor and go everywhere. The cottages we stayed at have less-cluttered floors than our own, although there were some gouges in the cottage’s hardwood floors, so we kept an eye on him but otherwise let him roam until he got into something he shouldn’t. At home, he just wants to get on the floor so he can free-range around the living room. He crawls to the edge of his mat, pulls up a border piece, and starts chewing on it. (With Rosie the Boston Terrible shedding so much hair, I’m surprised she’s not bald. We’re using the vacuum and Clorox wipes a lot.) Or he’ll find his little toy-bucket and tip it over to find some goodies.

Not satisfied with just crawling, he got hold of the rim of his Pack&Play and stood up. He still needs to work on his stamina, because it wears him out to do it more than once or twice. I expect he’ll be walking soon… and we’ll never need to look for him, because Mason will be complaining about Charlie being in his space.

One thing he needs to work on is to pick up his knees. Right now, he drags them forward, which scuffs him up on carpet. This evening, I put him on the floor next to me at the desk. He shredded some paper, banged on the spare keyboard, then started crawling away. He got down to the bathroom before he sat down and contemplated the situation until I came and picked him back up. You would think he’d be sleeping better, but his newfound mobility seems to have him so excited he can’t wind down at night. Not that he minds, being the charter member of the Sleep Fight Club (first rule of Sleep Fight Club: you don’t fall asleep in Sleep Fight Club).