We're Rolling Now

Yesterday Kerrington rolled over.  A few weeks ago we suspected that she might have rolled while playing on her blanket, but there were two strikes against marking it as official: 1) no eye witnesses, and 2) neither Joel nor I could definitively remember if we had placed her on her back or on her belly when we originally set her down to play.  That didn't help matters.

Yesterday there was no doubt.  That baby rolled. 

She rolled so much that she ended each of her naps prematurely, as if she was surprised to find herself suddenly on her belly and not entirely pleased with her inability to revert to her original position. 

Oh, the struggles of infancy. 

One of my older children, who will remain nameless, woke herself -- and us -- so frequently with her nighttime one-way rolling antics that I was not above thinking about duct taping her to the crib.  (You get a little desperate at 4:00 in the morning.)  Hopefully, Kerrington will not follow in these footsteps.

At any rate, to commemorate yesterday's milestone I thought it would be nice to document a few observations about Kerrington's childhood, now that she's a mature baby who rolls and all.

She's not much of a spitter, but what she lacks in frequency, she makes up in stealth.  You never see it coming, and then bam, you've been hit, like an unassuming swimmer gets slammed with a rogue wave.  She's a very sneaky baby.

I can't get enough of her expressions, especially right when I'm about to feed her.  She gets that wide-mouthed, head-wagging, oh-I-am-so-looking-forward-to-this toothless smile that reminds me of a little bird.  It's quite endearing.

As much to be expected for a person who spends nearly all of her time lying down, she's gaining greater control of her body.  Her arms still drift upward in haphazard, erratic fashions as if they were being jerked by invisible marionette strings, but this is becoming less common.  However, just this afternoon I did see her whack herself in the forehead with a rattle, temporarily frozen in astonishment by her own assault, so she obviously still has her work cut out for her in terms of coordination.

She is mesmerized by her own hands.  Sometimes I watch her inspecting them -- grabbing her own fingers, opening and closing them into fists, finding ways to fit her entire fist into her mouth -- and wish that I could be that excited by my own body parts.  A finger!  Would you look at that?

She looks uncannily similar to our other girls when they were infants.  Years from now when I stumble upon loose photographs, I'll likely have to use contextual clues to discern which one she is.  She's version 3.0, and she's a keeper.

Oh, Kerrington, you are our little baby who rolls.