I’ve been putting off making this latest update, but we’ve had exciting progress this week: Baby S, at 4 months, is almost crawling! She’s been scooting around on her tummy backwards and in circles and a little forward for a couple of weeks now, and this week she’s getting up on all fours and then rocking forward and falling back on her tummy a few inches forward from where she was. So close to crawling! I bet that she’ll be there in a couple of weeks. This is almost two months faster than Big Girl A hit that milestone; I think it’s due to a crawling track and more tummy time. It’s very exciting to see her growing up so fast!
I’ve started Doman words and math dots, and she watches Big Girl’s Bits of Intelligence, for visual stimulation. She does LMs with Big Girl for aural stimulation, and we do tickles and massage with every diaper change. She loves that! She laughs and wiggles while I change her in anticipation. Then when I pick her up, she hangs from my fingers for about 10 seconds. We’re working up to 30 seconds, and then we’ll start hanging from the brachiation ladder. After that, I do 15 seconds of the next stage of balance exercises. She likes these ones much better than Big Girl ever did. She’ll want to keep it up longer than I do. So diaper changes take about twice as long as they would otherwise, but it works OK. Other than that, it’s just lots of tummy time.
I like this stage much better than the last one. I like doing our computer time (my husband programmed a LR/LM-esque word and math dot displayer) a couple of times a day, and she and I both love the diaper change routine. And we’re seeing results! She’s crawling and reaching out to grab toys and manipulate them (Big Girl A’s little toy Tigger is the hands-down winner of the toy lineup). And she loves to talk and flirt with us. We’ve been on vacation this week, and I’m excited to get back to our learning routine.