Kaitlyn Rolls Over

03/31/2004

Kaitlyn Rolls Over

And so your Mom tells me, Kaitlyn, that you have rolled over. This at almost four months of age. You can roll over “both” ways as your Mom describes it and my mind took ages to configure this concept.

Evidently, Kaitlyn, babies can roll from their stomach to their back, or from their back to their stomach. If I understand this correctly, the roll from back to stomach is a bit more difficult in that there is no curved sort of belly surface to make such a maneuver easier. When baby is on stomach, that mere act of moving strongly in one direction makes rolling over from stomach to back easier as the chubby belly acts as a pivot.

Which is quite enough physics for this grandmother to grapple.

I did have a baby but can recall no major benchmarks. Though I must assume that life’s mile markers were reached and surpassed by this former baby in that she can now walk, talk, and no longer wets the bed.

Your mother, Kaitlyn, has the Internet to guide her through motherhood at each and every phase.

Our I-messages are peppered with expert quotes from child-rearing web sites as to the proper age for a baby to be rolling over. Which would be, Kaitlyn, an age of four to six months.

You would seem to be rolling all over your parents’ floor as if a baby bowling ball approximately one week before your time.

I must say I’m impressed.

Understand, Kaitlyn, that at some point my baby rolled all around as I do recall one incident when she rolled clear off the bed and banged her head on the floor with a boo-boo.

She might have been ahead of her time as well but, alas, I had no web sites to guide me.

Your Mom tells me that while rolling over has brought great joy to your little life, you are now frustrated because laying around on one’s belly, forced to lift that heavy head in order to view the world, was a bit boring. In time you have to be turned over by your mother.

“She wants to crawl,” your mother informs me.

An action not normally mastered by babies until 6 months to 8 months of age. Your mother told me this fact as well. Obtained from the Gerber Baby well baby web site.

Though I must agree, Kaitlyn, that you probably do want to crawl because I don’t ever recall an infant that if sheer force of will was all powerful would be walking on air across the room.

I was holding you in my lap, sort of sitting you up with your front away from mine. Your mother was opposite me, her face towards us. Suddenly you realized the person holding you was not your mother as right there in front of your sweet baby face was your very own mother who held no baby in her lap.

The four month old Kaitlyn then began grunting and thrusting her torso in some attempt of forward movement. Your infant mind hadn’t quite developed the precise physics of forward motion but your instincts told you it required some energetic type actions by your body.

I had to hold you down as if an errant puppy, Kaitlyn, so determined were you to eject yourself from my lap, into the air and across the space span into your mother’s lap.

Which caused you to screw up your face and do the only physical action a baby can really master. Which would be crying.

The whole situation was doubly frustrating, Kaitlyn, in that your growing mind somehow grasped that if my mother is over there with no baby in her arms then who the hell is holding me?

At that time turning around to ascertain just who was holding Kaitlyn wasn’t all that easy what with limited infant movement. I get the impression that baby Kaitlyn is quite tired of having to be depend on other human beings for her own movements.

Which might be why you are ahead of your time Kaitlyn Mae.

You have an urgent need to get all about on your own, Kaitlyn and I think this is an indicator of something.

I’m not sure what, Kaitlyn, but perhaps your Mom could look it up on Luvs.com.

Of course the urge to move about on one’s own is pretty much universal across the human species. Else many of the adult world would likely still be crawling all about; some might still be sitting in their little kiddie chair and staring at the world.

It’s a matter of how soon that says something about an individual, Kaitlyn, and I have always been impressed by how much your infant self yearned for freedom of movement.

Now I’m working on a hunch here, Kaitlyn. No web sites have updated my mind is what I’m saying here.

You’ve always been a baby to grunt and wave your arms and legs all about. More so than another baby your age I’d assert. Granting my limited experience with babies.

I’m thinking it’s in your genes, Kaitlyn. Duh. Most everything is in your genes. And this trait comes to you directly from your paternal side.

Your paternal side, Kaitlyn, is a strange one. I say this, of course, as scion of your maternal side, the side that provides your beauty and brains.

You want fast-paced movement, go see your Daddy’s family.

Heck our entire family has LOW blood pressure, Kaitlyn. We spring from folks unafraid of hard work but we know how to take it easy, Kaitlyn.

This is not to cast aspersions on your father’s family, Kaitlyn. Not at all. They are an energetic, creative bunch. Sometimes, Kaitlyn, they are a bit reckless.

Like baby Kaitlyn wanting to fly across the air to her mother’s arms, physics be damned.