It’s been three days since little EC turned 10 months, and four days since I first noticed her stand up on her own by propping herself up on something. She prefers low boxes that she can put her hands down on from a crouching position, instead of railings or other things that she would have to reach up for and pull. She braces her hands, pulls one foot up, and then pushes with hands and foot until the other foot gets up. At that point she’s doing a plank, and she usually will walk that in until she’s almost standing upright.

Just today, she started taking my offered hand (holding only my thumb; I guess she wants something she can grip completely) and letting go of her box. Then she’s standing straight up, with only my hand keeping her balanced; and she’ll do this until she realizes she doesn’t know how to get down. Then she’ll go back to the box or perhaps I’ll let her drop backward slowly so she gets the idea. All in all, she has great fun with that.

She’s also now quite adept at putting things away if asked. We started with blocks, but we’ve moved on to stuffed animals, other toys, and just today, successfully, books. She can actually re-file a book in its shelf; and if she’s lucky, it’ll be somewhat correctly oriented. Also, she’s decided to start taking the books out one at a time, rather than just pulling them all out. And when she wants it read, she turns and hands it to me.

We’ve also just started enjoying a game where we sit on opposite sides of a little foam arch that’s in our clubhouse. We can see each other both under the arch and over the arch. Then we get a ball or some other toy, and she passes it to me under the arch, and I put it on top of the arch for her to grab, and then we continue this for as long as she thinks it’s fun, which can be quite some time.

The number of things that she’s getting a handle on all at once is pretty amazing.

The new fun games this week in the Empirical household have mostly to do with putting things in other things and taking them out again. In our toy area, little EC has some balls and a little bowl (a kitchen implement about whose use I’m ignorant, so it became a toy). She enjoys taking the balls (particularly, the tennis ball…forget about all those balls made specifically for babies) and putting them in the bowl, then taking them out again…and again…and again. We also made a fun game out of picking up all her wooden blocks and putting them in the box where they belong. Once into this game, little EC would not be deterred from finding all the blocks scattered in the play area and returning them to their rightful place.

But in her mind, the books still do not belong on the shelf. They belong scattered all over the floor.

We had gates installed this week, at the top and bottom of the stairs, and across the entrance to the play area. I consider the stair gates a necessity. One wrong move, and a fall down a flight of tile stairs could easily be lethal. As much as I’d like to just take the time to teach her to be responsible on the stairs, those consequences are just too much to ignore. I’m a little more ambivalent about the one cordoning off the play area. I like the idea that she should be able to crawl around and explore…why should the rest of the house be off limits?…but I also like the idea of being able to walk away for a minute and not worry about where she will end up, especially once she starts moving faster. The entire gate can be attached and removed easily, so at least we have the option.

I also installed some foam padding along a particularly egregious corner in the play area. The funny thing is, now that she’s been playing there for months, and has hit her head on the corner a few times already, she’s cautious enough that she avoids the corner anyway, even when it looks like she’s focusing on something else. Sometimes, oddly, she will crawl up to it and gently place her head against it, as though she’s making sure it’s still there. So maybe the padding isn’t such a great idea…maybe she’ll forget about being cautious.

She also likes doing what I call “baby yoga”, which consists mostly of a downward dog-style pose. She’s getting very close to pushing her legs vertical, but always with her hands on the floor. She still shows no particular inclination to climb to a standing position.

I just kind of casually said that little EC had started crawling the day after her 9th month; and as predicted, we lost containment soon thereafter. Being newly self-locomotive, she is now able to explore anything that she wants (within reason—my reason—that is). I find it funny that she very intently goes after some things (the shoe rack; must pull out and examine all the shoes) and completely ignores other things (plenty of picture frames on the floor or an easy pull up the ottoman).

I’m guessing it’s because she is now able to explore on her own that she’s becoming more aware of her surroundings. On Saturday, she did something new for the first time: she saw a lizard perched on the wall, and while staring at it, she pointed to it. Like she wanted us to see what she was seeing. As an extension, today for the first time she took notice by herself of some flowers on the bushes outside, and pointed to them with the very clear intent that she wanted to be taken over to examine them. I think this would be classified under “social skills”: her actions have predictable impact on the actions of others (me).

In gross motor skill news, she now enjoys perching on her knees unaided by handholds, and pushing buttons. She’s not uniformly good at the button part yet, but good enough to keep her coming back.