Mobile Monkey

I had mentioned about a week ago that Parker was on the verge of being able to get into a sitting position by himself whenever he chose to with little difficulty. Secondly, I had mentioned that it would be today that I thought we would see the little guy starting to crawl.

Parker has absolutely no problem getting into a sitting position. Today, when we put him down for his afternoon nap we heard very little in his monitor so we decided to go in and check on him. There he was, sitting in the middle of his crib with his teething blanket in his mouth as he gnawed on it.

As for crawling? Parker is almost nine months and this is generally the time in which a baby begins to crawl. Yes, some are early crawlers and some crawl a little later. We never imagined Parker as an early crawler as he is definitely not the smallest baby his age and I can't imagine it being easy to carry all that weight around while you are crawling. Recall, he outweighs 80% of the other babies his age. That said, we had noticed he was rocking back and forth for a couple weeks and was even leaping like a frog once in a while. For this reason, I thought he would be crawling around his room quite quickly. Parker did not awake this morning crawling, but he was dragging himself with his arms and using his legs to push himself in the positive direction.

We decided that with Parker's new found mobility we needed to make some changes around the house so that we could accommodate Parker's crawling and keep him safe from germs. Currently, we have slippers that are dedicated for his bedroom. This allows us to keep dirt from elsewhere in the house outside of the confines of his room. He also has a heppa filter and his room is vacuumed each day. With these precautions we feel that his room is a safe place for him to play.

Having spent four months in isolation at Sick Kid's in Toronto we wanted to make sure that he was not only confined to his room. We also have a play area for Parker on the main floor in front of the television where we have placed a foam ABC mat for him and only him to play on. To date, this has worked extremely well, but recently with him rolling from point A to point B and now with his make shift crawling and soon to be crawling we needed a better solution.

We decided that we would enclose his play area with a fence so that we could ensure that he would not crawl off to another place in the house where the environment is as controlled. After setting up the fence we purchased we were saddened to see our son confined to a caged area. What we saw in front of us is exactly what we wanted to get away from. With that, we decided that we would remove the fence and promptly return it. We brought down the ABC mat from his bedroom and doubled his play area on the main floor. We also decided that one of the reasons we keep the house so clean is because of Parker and for that reason, we will not be completely distraught if he leaves his mat to explore another area of the home. The main floor does not contain carpet, so we do not have the same worries and concerns as we do in his room.

I am sure that most of the people that populate this site have seen the story that City News did on Parker last night. I have to say that we were extremely pleased with the story and if you have not seen it yet, we suggest that you do. To see the story, click here. To any of our new readers, you will notice a collection of videos of Parker on the right side bar. The more recent ones do take up more space, so please be patient as they are definitely worth the wait!