Going Mobile

Thursday, Jude and I took John Patrick to the doctor for his 1 year check up. He's still long and lean, almost 23 pounds (25th percentile) and 28 or 29 inches (80th percentile). Our doctor said he looked great, but expressed a little concern that he wasn't crawling yet. After I told him neither my sister nor I crawled at all and, in fact, didn't walk until we were 14 or 15 months old, he was less concerned.

Of course, I panicked as soon as he mentioned being even a little concerned about the fact that John Patrick hadn't started crawling. Jude, ever the voice of reason, was more of the mindset that all children develop on their own schedule, which is basically what Dr. Godfrey told us. Jude and I agreed, however, that we probably should just work with him a little more when we're playing, and that everyone would be okay. That didn't stop me from worrying, though.

Well, Saturday afternoon, while Jude was napping, I threw a blanket down in our front yard. John Patrick and sat on the blanket and enjoyed what was an amazingly beautiful spring day in Music City U.S.A. I laid John Patrick on his stomach on one end of the blanket, then tossed my cell phone to the other end of the blanket. He looked at me, looked at the cell phone at the other end of the blanket, looked at me again, then it was off to the races! Slowly and a little unsteadily, he crawled to the other end of the blanket, picked up my my cell phone and put it right in his mouth. Then, straining and grunting, he rolled over and sat up, clutching the cell phone in his hand the entire time.

I was so excited I called Jude (using my now wet cell phone), woke her up from her nap and told her to come out front and watch her son. She did. We smiled, clapped and high fived each other as John Patrick crawled, fell, then crawled again, from one end of the blanket to the other.

Today, after church, we went to Dragon Park near Vanderbilt. After we ate lunch under the shade of a large tree, Jude tossed my cell phone into the grass and off John Patrick went. For the most part, he kept his head up and seemed to crawl with a little less effort, though it was still a struggle. Awesome! I took the photograph above while we were at the park.