My Mobile Mabel...

Mabel is just amazing! She has been successfully rolling over from her back to her belly for over a week or so now and she and I have been working on tummy to back and yesterday she did it! She just rolled that cast right over and boy was she proud of herself - and so was I. We clapped and cheered. She has just gotten so strong in her upper body, almost freakishly strong for such a little girl. The other day she was trying to get past her toy box and she just grabed it and slid it over out of her way! Wow, Wonder Woman! Her loose leg has also been getting a work out. We practice standing on one leg, I really think she could pull herself up to standing if given the right senario.

With all this new found mobility comes the reality that she needs to move to get all this pent up energy out. Her mind wants her to do these things, but her body can't right now. I think the inablity to really move like she needs to is what leads to bad sleep and cranky days. Mabel is typically so happy and well mannered, but Sunday and yesterday were tough days for her. I could feel some frustration coming from her. I know her tooth is tourturing her, but there was just something else bothering her. Her rolling makes her so happy and I learned the hard way, do no try to stop her from rolling, boy oh boy that makes her mad. I'm not being mean, she can't roll in the middle of a diaper change! This new ability also makes for no more pillow while sleeping. She now can move herself around and she can adjust her position so that is good, a few times she woke crying and moved herself back to sleep - I like that. She accepted no pillow very well and I feel better because it always freaked me out having a pillow in there with her.

It hurts to know that if she didn't have this cast she probably would have been crawling very well long before now, probably pulling herself up to stand and maybe even walking. I try no to think about that too much, otherwise I get sad. Zack's brother sent a video of his little boy first crawling, it was amazing and then we got sad thinking we never got to see Mabel do that. But like I said to Zack, most babies learn to crawl, but how many learn to roll themselves over in a spica cast?

So last night after a day of lots of tears, too little naps and tons of rolling over, Mabel couldn't fall asleep. I laid on the floor with her as she started to doze of and for 20 minutes she nursed as we laid on the floor together with her next to me, rolling her self towards me then away from me over and over again will waving. She's really practicing her new moves!

Practice makes perfect Mabel!