My little lady is about nine and a half months old. She's a little thing, only in about the tenth percentile for height, although she is chunking up rather nicely after a slow start (but hey, she was five weeks early and spend two weeks in the NICU. What do you expect?). She is beautiful, smart, hilarious, loving, strong-willed and absolutely perfect. She is not crawling yet -- although she's close -- and despite comments from everyone and their mother about the fact that our baby should "really be crawling by now," all while implying there is something wrong with my daughter, I still feel how I have always felt: She's perfect, exactly how she is. Everyone else is in a rush to get her crawling, but I, on the other hand, am perfectly fine with waiting. Here are five reasons why I want my baby to not start crawling yet.
1. I'm not ready for the bumps and bruises.
With crawling comes many failed attempts, heads and legs and everything in between bumping into any and all obstacles, and I simply don't know if I'm ready for that. I have a hard time thinking about my daughter in any kind of pain, and although I know it's part of the process, I would much rather that it just not.
2. I'm terrified of something falling on her.
I'm going to be doing I can to baby proof the house and make sure that no object is on a high up place that is not properly secured, but you better believe that I'll be watching shelves like a hawk. The thought of something falling from a high up place and landing square on my baby's melon is completely frightening.
3. I don't want her to lose her baby chunks.
Right now she has the most adorably chubby cheeks. They are entirely irresistible. Once she starts getting mobile, she's going to start shedding that baby fat, and I don't want her to lose those cheeks yet.
4. Worn out clothing.
I foresee many articles of clothing getting ripped, torn, stained, worn out or generally demolished in the process of her progressing mobility. On the one hand, this is money down the drain, which is not good. However, this also means my wife gets to go baby clothes shopping, which makes her very happy. This is very good.
5. Crawling means she's growing up.
What happened to the tiny little thing that was completely dependent on mom and dad just a few short months ago? Those days are gone, and the days of increasing independence are on the horizon. That is a bewildering and sobering thought.
On the big scale, what this really equates to is one thing -- my baby isn't going to be a baby for much longer. She's growing, changing and developing so quickly that it feels like she is learning or doing something new every day. I don't know that I'm ready for that, but I guess I don't have much choice. Although I can't wait to see the kid that she becomes, I will always miss the days where she was completely and 100% dependent on her mother and me.
And with that... bring on mobility.
You can find more from Jon Helmkamp at Finding Fatherhood, on Facebook, and on Twitter.