Progress and delays

When we were heading down to our friends' place for dinner two weeks ago, we found this white crane in our front yard. I see them on the lake a lot, and once in awhile we see them in the yard. This is the closest I've seen. He slowly walked away from me as I advanced with the camera.

Good news! Aaron's two bottom molars have finally broken through. They have taken so darn long, and still aren't fully through, that it seems anti-climatic after so many months of teething. He does seem to be doing a little better, though, so I think the pain may be easing up.

Last week Aaron started creeping. I wouldn't call it crawling yet. He's not up on his knees. And he uses his left forearm and his right hand. It's more of an army crawl. In one of my parenting books, it says they usually start crawling a couple of months after they start creeping. But they usually start creeping months ago. Although he's been kind of doing an army crawl prior to last week, it was short lived. He'd drag himself forward an inch, then roll. But now he goes in a straight path (more or less) all the way to the electrical outlet on the wall where he then proceeds to pull out the plastic plug that is part of our recent attempts at baby proofing. Baby proofing: 0. Baby: 1.

He is also starting to try to pull himself up on the coffee table, but he has trouble supporting his weight and even when I help him to a stand, he doesn't last more than a few seconds at a time. This concerns me the most at this point, since I think he should be taking assisted steps by now. (In fact, as I'm writing this, I got an e-mail from a friend with a baby that is 4 months younger than Aaron who is standing on her own and getting ready to walk.) A friend of ours who recently caught up on the blog was concerned about Aaron not crawling and talked to her sister who works with developmentally delayed children. We are going to meet them on Friday for an informal assessment of Aaron. She supposedly also knows how to jump through the necessary hoops to get Aaron the treatment he needs. Our next appointment with the pediatrician is on Tuesday and I am going to talk to her more about this, too, and see what other kinds of testing we might be able to do as well as how we can get the insurance company to cover therapy.

I've tried not to worry too much about it. I've read over and over again that crawling isn't considered a major milestone and that kids vary widely in when they start crawling. And although I've read that skipping crawling all together can lead to learning problems later in life, Aaron is not skipping crawling, he is just very slow to catch on. I also haven't been overly worried because Aaron is doing great otherwise. If he was delayed in his other motor skills or in his social skills, I'd be really worried. But he's such a happy, social, curious child who is constantly learning new things that I haven't been too worried. Plus he's been making slow but steady progress.

But suddenly, especially after our friend (who raised 6 kids) showed so much concern, I'm very worried. I started researching possible causes online, but that only made it worse. And now I'm wondering if I did something wrong. Maybe we didn't put Aaron on his tummy enough. Maybe I haven't given him enough opportunities to try to pull himself up. It doesn't seem like these things are hard for other babies to learn. Did I screw up somehow? Or is it part of Aaron's personality? He's so self-entertaining, he's content to sit for stretches at a time playing with the same toys rather than moving around and exploring more.

I could drive myself crazy thinking about it too much. I'll just wait and see how things go on Friday and at his checkup on Tuesday. Wish us luck.