(8 months) Is Emily up to something? What a grin! She loves to kneel by her car seat and play with it. We just love seeing this little face everyday!

(8 months) The balance required for sitting seems to work also for kneeling. After watching Emily in the days after she started sitting on her own, I noticed that she was starting to kneel next to furniture. It was first her toy box, then her car seat, then her crib bars, and lastly the couch and ottoman. Once again Emily surprised me with this development. I looked away and when I looked back she had stood up. I was shocked. Since then she has continued to pull up. She hasn’t figured out how to get down from the pulled up position, so we are alerted with a cry each time she gets up and doesn’t fall down.

(8 months) We have been setting Emily on the floor by herself to sit, but we always had something next to her to help her steady herself. Obviously, she is more comfortable than we thought. Last week, as she was crawling across the floor, we looked away and when we looked back at her, she had pulled herself up to a sitting position. Since then it has been a lot of fun to watch Emily as she has been exploring the world on her own with crawling and sitting.

Daddy’s perspective

I took a morning off work to spend some time with Emily during her swim class. She seemed to really enjoy our time together. Especially, when I made motorboat sounds, and encouraged her to “chase” me through the water. She seems to favor the breaststroke; she kicks like a frog. I think she gets that from me.

She seemed fairly comfortable in the water, with the one exception that she latched one of her hands around my arm, and would only paddle with one hand. It was sweet, and a bit silly looking, too. She also didn’t like it when I dunked her under the water, so I only put her under once.

I am really looking forward to more swim time with Emily. When can we go back, Mommy?

(8 months) Emily is crawling pretty efficiently now. She looks around and lets something catch her attention and then heads off in that direction. Sometimes it is a toy, sometimes a piece of furniture, and sometimes a parent. She has crawled under a few pieces of furniture so far. We have figured out how to ‘bank’ other things by the furniture to discourage her from getting stuck under it. Emily will crawl into tight situations and then not know how to get out. Everyday she seems to be moving faster than the day before.

(8 months) Emily is taking swim lessons! Our local community pool offered a parent-tot swim class to introduce little ones to water. Emily is the only child in the class so we are getting a lot of one-on-one time with the instructor. Emily thinks the water is cold and is fussy until she gets used to it. I think it takes Mommy just as long to get used to the water as it takes Emily. Some of the activities we do in the pool are “swimming” between Mommy and the instructor while focusing on the kicking motion, jumping into the pool from the side of the pool, floating on our back, splashing Mommy to encourage movement of the arms, and holding on to the side of the pool by ourselves. There are also fun things to look at while we are in the pool. There are lane flags, lane dividers, bubbles made by the instructor, and water geysers made by Mommy.

Overall, Emily is doing great in the class. She likes Ms. Joyce, her instructor, and doesn’t seem to mind the water. She has a natural kicking motion anyway and that translates well into the kicking motion for swimming. Part way through the series of classes, Emily has decided that she needs to hold on to Mommy more while we are in the pool. I’m sorry that she doesn’t enjoy the freedom of being relaxed in the water that she once had. It is hard to learn to paddle with your hands when you are holding onto Mommy’s wrist. Her concern does have an up-side though. She is now holding on to the edge of the pool by herself and even trying to climb out. Before she was too laid back to grab on to the side. Emily will put her mouth and nose into the water by herself when swimming between the instructor and Mommy. One day she figured out how to spit a fountain of water out of her mouth. Unfortunately, she has not repeated this on other days. It was so cute. Some days the water in her face is frustrating and some days she doesn’t seem to care. Each day we ‘dunk’ Emily once under the water. She doesn’t like it too much and wants hugs from Mommy when she comes up and is trying to figure out what happened.

Emily was lucky one day when Daddy came to class and got to play in the pool. Unfortunately, good things must come to an end and she only has a couple of classes left to go to. Mommy will be on the lookout for other opportunities to go swimming because this has been a good experience and a lot of fun!