On the Move...

Jacob's been busy learning new things the last few weeks. When we went to Florida (Jacob - just 7 months old) Pat decided he would work on teaching Jacob how to pull up on the ottoman. He was quite successful, the only hiccup in the plan was that Jacob could only pull up if you put him right next to the ottoman, and he could reach it. He then progressed to pulling up on his crib, again, if he was right on the edge. Jacob had been quite a good sitter for several months, and would watch the other kids in his day care crawl, and on a few play dates he'd just sit and watch while other kids his age crawled circles around him - but Jacob seemed to have NO desire to crawl like them. His pulling up skills didn't come in handy when playing on the floor with others his age... until this weekend!
Friday Jacob moved to the bigger baby room at daycare. I figured this might help his progression to crawling, and it did - or Jacob just decided he was tired of sitting still. He came home Friday and we were playing with his monkey and FINALLY Jacob decided maybe he'd give the crawling thing a shot.
the beginning of Friday night:


Saturday provided for a little bit of practice and it all finally clicked. His chosen technique is what Pat refers to as "gorilla" one leg tucked up under is body, the other out to the left - for easily getting into standing stance when arriving at a destination to pull up. Jacob can now get himself to the things he wants to pull up on and cruise around - mainly the ottoman and couch, and a dinning room chair here and there. While I thought this was great fun, I quickly realized we have a LOT of baby proofing to do QUICK! We had some friends over Sunday for a bit, and while we were all sitting on the couches talking he pulled up and went straight for the cup holders which had cups FULL of liquid in them. He thought it was GREAT fun to see us try to get to the cups before he pulled them over on his head - if you know his Daddy, you know what would have ended up on Jacob's head - cold beer.
We have quickly gone from having a child we could sit or stand in one place and not have to worry about him moving much from that spot to a mobile child.
Pulling up:


Crawling, pulling up AND cruising, OH MY!
And remember how he was taught 6 weeks ago to pull up? Well during the last 6 weeks he learned to cruise. So cruising the ottoman is quite a fun time... apparently so is reaching for the tablecloth that covers the side table next to our chair and a half in the bedroom... reaching and pulling it all the way down is REALLY fun. Did you know that? And it's all really fun when now you can get from one side of the room to the other and then get to that tablecloth all on your own. So, yes, we became QUITE mobile this weekend. We went from in one spot - to all over the place in 72 hours.
A little cruising:


He's still not too fast, but I'm sure that won't take long to change. And Jacob is MUCH more interested in being able to stand, climb and cruise around than crawl some where. So I'm sure this crawling thing will only be used as needed, and we might quickly have a walker. Did I mention he can stand for upwards of 20 seconds on his own? Yep... Our stationary lives are OVER, and we LOVE it!