The anticipation among my extended family for my daughter to crawl has been growing in the last few weeks. While I will be pleased when my daughter learns to crawl, I am in no hurry for her to leave her non crawling stage behind especially considering that she is only six months old. My son did not acquire his crawling skill until he was eight months old. Of course all children grow and learn at different rates so I am not expecting that my daughter will necessary learn at the same pace as her brother. In a lot of ways my daughter has an additional advantage that her brother did not; the example of other young children. It is not that my son was not around children that were close to the same age, he was never around them as often as his sister. We get together with my sister and her daughter several times a week. My daughter’s cousin is three months older than her and full of neat tricks to teach her young cousin who in turn is a very attentive student. My daughter also has the inspiring example of another female cousin who is a mere four weeks older. Since my daughter is a master imitator, she learned to sit up a lot earlier than I had expected. Even without being able to officially crawl, my daughter is very mobile and with the combination of rolling and scooting, she can go pretty much were ever she pleases.
With her early (in my opinion) mobility, I was constantly being told that my daughter was going to be crawling in no time. Even my husband commented that he could not wait until she was crawling. He did not have to wait long. Within a week of her wall to wall mobility, she was officially crawling. It all started one evening just before dinner. She was getting a little anxious because she was hungry too. She had gotten her self up on her hands and knees and was rocking back and forth (like she had countless times before), but this time she propelled herself forward towards me and she was officially crawling!