Milestones

Time ticks on and new skills are acquired.

While babies that seem to now surround me at every turn are dramatically fulfilling and exceeding their milestone expectations - standing at unnaturally young ages, expanding their vocabularies, writing their post-doctoral theses - Otter has chosen a more subtle approach. Quietly, without much ado, she's sneaking up on new skills.

For example, we recently discovered she can stand. This came as a complete surprise, since she's made no attempts to sit up, let alone pull herself into a standing position. But bored on a Saturday afternoon, I decided to experiment with baby (as I often entertain myself these days) and leaned her up against furniture. Lo and behold, she stood. And quite steadily at that. When she's had time to learn this is beyond me.

In the meantime, any tries at crawling have stalled out. Since SB can only succeed in sliding backwards on her belly as she strives to reach a toy, she is more frustrated now than she was when she couldn't move at all. So she's called it quits. Ditto on trying to sit up (unless she's already at an angle and thus, half-way there) pull up or engage in any locomotion that doesn't involve rolling. For the most part, however one plops her down (be it lying, sitting or standing) is how she stays.

But I suspect that while the babies we know have been busy getting mobile, Otter's reached a far more valuable milestone. She's figured out the class system. Namely, that her father, her nanny and I are of the servant class and that sooner or later WE will carry her wherever she wants to go.