Babies crawl don't they? That's what they do. They want to move and so they propel themselves with all of the might of their little arms and legs. I guess that Max wants to be a little different. Having mastered the art of rolling and letting us capture it on video as proof, he has never used this skill again.
It has become a talking point in the crèche. They refer to Max as the one who doesn't roll. I didn't understand the significance of this until I was there for a few minutes the other day being updated on the biting incident. That's another story altogether. So there I was listening intently to the apologetic tones of the wonderful educarer, a child, only a little older than Max began to roll. They rolled and rolled and rolled until they had reached their destination. Then they stopped, raised themselves up on their forearms and called for assistance from anyone who was listening. This roll was much better than a crawl as it had drama, periodic pauses to confirm trajectory and a good dose of fun.
I was told that such a roll is a clear precursor to a really dynamic crawl. Now crawling has taken a beating due to the advice from all quarters that babies never be left unattended on their tummies. If the babies are not on their tummies they cannot learn to crawl. So we have tummy time where Max is put on his tummy with full supervision and a safety vest. He can raise himself up, he can raise his neck, he meets all of the developmental goals and then goes back to sitting up and chewing anything within reach. As for rolling or crawling though, that's a no. We are putting items out of reach. We are cheering at the merest twitch of his thigh muscles. We are promising him untold riches if he will take that first lunge. But no. He will move when he is ready. His father, I have to sadly report did not crawl until he was one. This has held him back to this day and is a bit embarrassing. We will not allow a story to be told about max at his 21st birthday party that involves a cake, his five bellies and his first crawl. No disrespect to my own parents who were blameless in this matter, I was just a tubby lazy infant. Max may not have licked it from a stone.
But back to the biting incident that I teased you with earlier. Max was bitten by another toddler. The identity of this toddler has been kept a secret and it is just as well. If I knew which cannibal family he, she or it belonged to I would lie in wait for them at the crèche and slash their tyres. Joking aside, the whole episode was both comical and a testament to the great care that he is getting in the crèche.
When I picked him up on the day in question, which shall now forever be know as biter Tuesday, I was met with the usual routine. Max sees me and beams and then starts to cry as I try to gather his things to make the journey home, so I pause and pick him up. This makes gathering the rest of his things five times as hard. The educarers talk me through his day, the ups, the downs, the soiled nappies and the vomits, the sensory bottles and a list of the songs they sang. All went as normal up to this point when an A4 piece of paper was unfolded from the book and the nervous educarer told me that there had been an incident.
My first reaction was that Max had done something awful, like tried to drink the hand sanitizer or eye-gouged on of his crèche-mates. But no, he was the Mahatma Ghandi of this piece. He turned the other cheek, in this case forehead as the evil one sank all four of his/her razor sharp teeth stumps into his precious and delicate skull. I exaggerate. There was a tiny mark on his head. He cared not a jot and shrugged the whole thing off when we discussed it later. The educarers were a little more concerned and had filled out an incident report form with an exact report of the incident and how they had all responded. I was actually amazed. They had really gone to great trouble to detail everything and while I know that this kind of thing is driven by insurance and the spectre of Health&Safety it was very reassuring.
I know that Max could have lashed out and dealt a return blow to the biter. I know he can defend himself, he is capable of beating his mother and me away very quickly. But he chose not to do so under the watchful eyes of the educarers. He is biding his time, one day when their backs are turned and the time is right, that biter will regret ever getting their first tooth and the little tooth fairy will be paying a premature visit to that household. His kicks are coming along very nicely thank you. It's just such a pity about the crawling.
No comments:
Post a Comment