Leon Spinx and Crocs

For a couple of months now, Dylan has been on the verge of two things: teething and crawling. We've attributed any fussy behavior and drooling to teething. This has been since September, and still, no teeth. Regina and I have finally conceded that Dylan just may be a toothless, drooling person, much like Leon Spinx.

The crawling thing tricked us a little as well. Like the teeth that we looked for every day, Dylan duped us into thinking that, yes, any second now I will begin crawling. Watch for it. We'd hold our breath as Dylan got up on her hands and knees, would do a little booty dance, and then, just at the moment we expected forward progress, she'd plop down on her belly and wiggle her arms and legs like a baby skydiver.

We figured that Dylan would skip the crawling stage of her development altogether, but last weekend she took her first tentative step forward (forward is important here, as she's been scooting backward on the hardwood floors for a few weeks, which doesn't count as crawling, even for us). It was beautiful. An honest-to-God left hand, right foot step. She immediately plopped down to her belly and resumed skydiving. We squealed. Dylan screamed. She repeated this all evening until she put together two or three steps in a row. Dylan could now literally crawl YARDS without rolling or scooting backwards.

One thing we've learned, and promptly forgotten, is that with kids, every day is something new. Crawling was no exception. Day two of crawling was a nice progression from day one, much like we expected our little Mensa star to do. The crawl evolved into a step, dive, roll combination that made her look like a wounded animal. The step was ugly, yet functional, much like turtlenecks or Crocs.

Dylan broke out her A game for day three and abandoned the whole hands and knees aspect of crawling. She's now gone from the crawl position, then up to hands and tippy-toes, then gives a big dive forward, much like a breakdancer doing "the worm." She can put three or four of these together and cover the length of the living-room in 4.5 seconds flat.

The first night she crawled, I told Regina that it was the beginning of the end. No more propping Dylan in front of the window to look at the kitties while we run into town for a few grocery items. No more stationary baby, we now have a traveller. On the bright side, we may have America's first breakdancing baby. That's got to be worth something on YouTube. Look out Leon Spinx, Dylan's coming.