Mobility Issues

Hmmm…. I am reminded of the Friends episode (The One with the Stain) where Joey tries to convince Rachel that there is enough room in his apartment for the baby after it’s born:

No room? It’s a baby. It’s like this big. (Holds his hands about a foot apart.) Y’know, I mean you-you could you could put it over here. (A desk.) Or-or-or we could put it right here. (The chair.) Aw, it’s cute, right? Or-or we could put it over here. (By the bathroom door.) You wouldn’t even notice it. Where’s the baby? (Mumbles that it’s over in the corner.)

For the first five months of her life, Tilly was that (holds hands about a foot apart). If I left the room, she would be where I had left her, which, on more than one occasion, was the kitchen table, the bed, the rug and propped in the corner of the sofa cushions…

We travelled to Washington DC last week to visit the Sis who departed there before Christmas and thus had not met the Tilster.

Tils was a model baby, despite jetlag and so much sightseeing activity, and the Sis is besotted.

So far, so soppy.

However, the one glitch in the plan was her sudden success at movement. My child is now a spinning top and cannot be left anywhere. Name a surface and I can guarantee you it will not be safe. The bed? No – she has [nearly] fallen from there to the floor… The floor? No – there are a myriad of dangers and perils awaiting the speedy steamroller including walls, tables, chairs, sofas and even soft toys, which interrupt her intended trajectory and send her speeding into said dangers even if she –and I- had thought she was going to avoid them.

Thankfully, the bedding plan worked for the duration of the week (strategically piled towels, a rolled yoga mat for bumper, all covered in a cot sheet) but had we travelled even a few days later I fear she would have been up and outta there quicker than a prison break!

There is nothing for it but to strap her to or in various objects in the hope that she does no longer term damage to herself.

  

When left to her own devices on the floor, she rapidly descends into a shrieking harpy who cannot decide whether she prefers to be on her front or back.

‘Tilly, if you don’t like it, you can roll over…’

This is taking some time to sink in.

One skill at a time… one skill at a time.

Pretty pictures of DC to follow – oh the knitting, oh the paper goods, oh the ‘old towns’…