I know he wants to...

My son always hated tummy time. I didn't force it on him but I would try to get some in every day. I was worried that he wouldn't learn to crawl because he didn't spend a lot of time on his belly, developing his back muscles, etc.

Then one day, he got up on all fours. I thought for sure that was it. He did this for a couple of days and then he started to rock. He didn't crawl but I know he wanted to.

These days were a little depressing. I knew he would be doing more things, more physical things and I hated the fact that I was at work most of the day. I wanted to be home, encouraging him. I just had to hope that he did everything in the evening or on weekends.

He must have understood because he took his first big leap when I was home. He did it. He put his hands forward. Then instead of falling on his face, which he had done plenty, he moved his legs. He actually moved a couple of inches before he decided that he had enough excitement for one day.

The next day he did it again. Just about the same distance but he did it. The day after that he was more bold and went a couple of feet. After that there was no stopping him. He would get going a little too fast sometimes. It was the cutest thing. His legs would go before his arms and he would get all tangled up and fall on his face. But he always got back up and kept going.

Within three or four days, he couldn't be stopped. He was a crawling machine. By the end of the first week of crawling, he pulled himself up on the couch into a standing position. He was only seven months old so I was sure that it was way too soon to start walking. He seemed perfectly content to stand there. I figured he was just getting his muscles ready for walking.

Within a week he was cruising along furniture. He would walk around the couch and the ottoman. He refused to let me hold his hands to walk though. He wasn't quite ready for that.

One thing that I noticed now though was that he was waking in the middle of the night again. He had been sleeping perfectly since I changed how he was eating. And if he did wake, I would hear him and then he would just go back to sleep right away. There was no need to even get up. But now he was waking and practicing his new skill. I would go in and find him standing up in his crib. The problem was that he had not perfected the sitting down part. So he would just be stuck there in a standing position. One time I went in and he fell forward and hit his face on the bars. Now I felt obligated to go to him in the middle of the night so he didn't hurt himself. I tried working with him to get him to sit down but he didn't get it. I felt like he had regressed to a two-month old, as far as night waking was concerned. Here we go again!