July 17, 2000 - Monday
Being up at the cabin over the weekend didn't give Harry much chance to do much crawling, but some time between his first crawl on Friday and today, and after months of hand-only turns and grabs, he must have realized that his legs will be the real drivers of his future forward progress. Unfortunately, without practice time over the weekend, Harry's technique remains a little rough around the proverbial edges. He has yet to artfully sync his legs with his hands and the result is something of a bulldozing action with his big head.

In what seems quite sudden, he's gone from unconsciously flailing his legs behind him to standing on his toes in an attempt to move forward. His head, however, is the default counter-support that allows he to balance and as he pushes forward from behind his head consequently starts to roll underneath him and he'll either pick it up suddenly and lunge forward or topple over sideways. Yet, there is no doubt that he is making forward progress and he knows it.

Harry's eating difficulties took a favorable turn finally, or perhaps it's our figuring that has finally improved. With the success of the corn cob, I've been thinking about Harry's need for independence and realized that he needs to be an active participant. We've read that before, but somehow we weren't letting him or didn't know how to let him go for fear of what? efficiency? the inevitable mess he will make staking out his independence and eating habits? It seems we will have to deal with those things because Harry is now in charge of his mouth.

Starting with the bottle in the morning, I let Harry hold and work it as best he could and, not surprisingly, the bottle went into his mouth before too long. All I had to do was lift it enough for the milk to flow. It's a touchy business because Harry clearly wants to be in charge and if he realizes too quickly that I'm doing it and not him, he'll refuse.

Later, dinner started out much the same as over the last couple of week: Harry not seeming to want anything to do with it. But, I had time tonight. Harry's mother was at a class and I was to be with him for three more hours. At first I tried letting Harry hold a second spoon, something Harry's mother read about, but that didn't do it for our boy. Next I tried letting him hold the actual food spoon. Regrettably, it did not go quickly into his mouth as many new items do nor as I was hoping and instead was gripped with fascination between his hands and banged about the chair. Finally, with corn cobs in mind, I grabbed a bag of uncooked baby carrot and started to eat them. Harry was intrigued. I gave Harry a carrot. He looked, felt, and not to long after put it in his mouth and began to do as much damage as his toothless mouth could do on a fresh, sturdy carrot stick. He probably got the taste of carrot, a taste he's had before, but little more than that. Then, as his aggressiveness ebbed, I offered him a spoonful of green pea mush and he ate. No objection.

He didn't eat all that much of his barley cereal mix and probably not even a full helping of the peas, but this was great progress in his eating and our continuing efforts to come to know one another. As I sat there going through this experience for more than an hour, I thought about how many times in my life I've eschewed advice and just done things my own way and how I've more recently come to realize that learning from other people and not necessarily having to figure everything out on my own is not a bad thing nor sign of intellectual weakness. Harry is my son and may be destined to repeat many of my shortcoming, but I will have to add this to the list of things I must try to teach him.


Comments, opinions?