Crawling genes

When Josh was around 6 months I was frustrated that he wasn't crawling. I know, first mom thing. He would stand, cruise and just about walk his way around the house, but not crawl. I got hopped up on rumors of reading issues later in life if a child didn't crawl before they walked and so I called in reinforcements. My sister-in-law is an OT and was kind enough to humor me. In one sunny afternoon on Labor Day, she had this little honey crawling down her hallway. Apparently, Josh just needed motivation (read:shiny object) and a little muscle memory practice.

I was overjoyed.

Then we came home and he was crawling more. The old adage "be careful what you wish for" could have been tatooed to my forearm after that. The child was everywhere. But mostly at my pant leg. He also had the most interesting way of crawling. It was a combo of walking and crawling. With a knee to the ground and the other foot propelling him forward, he got wherever he needed to go. We still found it cute, and yet I was thankful that by Thanksgiving he was walking and choose that as his preferred mode of transport.

A strange thing happened. Ellie crawled the same way. But of course, she put her own spin on it. Her crawl was more of a wounded animal making its way across a field. One knee moving while the other leg was more or less dragged behind her like an unwanted accessory.

I got worried. Maybe, in some freak way our genes were predisposed to "oddball crawling." (that's the official term...look that one up on wika.pedia.) We checked with our parents. No "oddball crawling" in our own past, at least that they could remember.

Then we had Owen. I began to wonder. What if he??? Well...he's fine. He crawls just as normal as can be. And he did it pretty much on his own. No motivational toys were needed. Just a big brother and sister who seemed to be having so much fun over there.

And then today....


I'm going with the theory he's just ready to move on to walking. Yeah...I'm sure that's it.