I'm not particularly disappointed that Ashley is a more efficient crawler than Caleb, but it does highlight to me how differently babies achieve their milestones. Ashley is talking, Caleb is walking, their little friend Millie can nod. When I get together with other mothers it seems like there is some addictive like tendancy to compare milestones! I guess I knew it would happen, so I'm trying to be excited for my friends and their babies and not jealous that Caleb is not doing what they're doing. I know the babies aren't concerned about who's first at this or that.
One milestone I knew to expect was using nesting objects. I hadn't really thought a lot about it except that I didn't see how Caleb was going to learn how to do it, mostly because I didn't have any idea how to teach him. But I have discovered that I didn't have to. Somehow he taught himself. I gave him these two small pans to play with a while back because he liked the banging sound they made. Today I watched him put one inside the other, take them apart, and start all over. He did it again and again and again.
It just reminded me that he's been paying attention and learning all along and slowly ability and knowledge are twisting together and showing themselves outwardly. And it shows me how much of an individual person he is. Not that I'm not teaching him anything, but I guess I overestimated my power over what he'll be able to do. It's humbling enough to say, "Say Ma-ma Caleb! Say Ma-ma!" and he looks a me happily and says, "Da-da!".
