Ten Months and Standing

I love this little guy.

But man oh man, he makes me worry.

You see, I am a worrier.

Worry is a "quality" that comes to me quite naturally.

I thought I had a good chunk of the parenting tricks down pat since we are now experiencing all of the stages a second time around. But Nash comes with his own set of unique worries.

If it's not his lack of weight gain then it's his heart issues. And if talk of his heart surgery is on hold then I worry about his development. And lately those worries have included a fear that he won't learn to crawl.

Don't get me wrong, Nash gets where he wants to go. He is a very fast inch-wormer. He can pull himself across the floor like a soldier slugging through the mud. But he has shown no interest in getting up on all fours. And I can't use the same tricks I used to get Blake to crawl in the grass since we have two feet of snow on the ground.

So when Nash recently pulled himself up to standing, I was terrified that it might be an indicator of skipping past that important crawling stage and moving on to walking.

I am in no rush for most of the developmental milestones. I figure the longer we can put off teething, baby food, walking, transitioning out of a crib, etc., the better. It'll all come in time when he is ready. But skipping over the crawling milestone altogether scares me.

Experts and occupational therapists say that crawling (on hands and knees) is a critical developmental milestone. I know a few people who skipped crawling as babies who had to go through crawling therapy as adults. They had to retrain their "crawling" muscles in physical therapy to form better connections between the right and left hemispheres of their brains.

Babies who skip past crawling and go straight to walking are supposedly not as strong and they have a harder time as older children with simple physical tasks. Bypassing this milestone can also affect a whole slew of things down the road including coordination issues, handwriting difficulties, risk of dyslexia, and increased fatigue. 

So, yes, I'm left with worry. Worry over issues small and large, things that if given time will probably work themselves out as most things do.

And you know what?

Nash is a miracle. Sure, he has his health and developmental issues. But despite the discomforts he has had to go through in his short life so far, he is oh so happy. Every time his eyes sparkle at us, I know that he is pleased as punch to be in our family. And we feel likewise. Sometimes it helps ease the worries when we know that we are working with a little miracle. We sure love his sweetness.