Skillful moves

Madeleine is now an expert at pulling up to standing, and she's trying to do it on every apparatus in our house. She is consistently getting herself stuck between the bottom rungs and the seat of our dining room chairs, because she pulls up using the rungs and tries to stand right up only to bonk her head on the bottom of the chair seat. Instead of pulling her head out and sitting down, she prefers to try and climb her body further into the space between chair seat and bottom rungs, which, in my opinion, is just asking for trouble.

Madeleine's new jungle gym.


She is also now able to stand at the safety gates like a prisoner rattling the rails of her cell:




And check this out:





I love the casual one-hand-for-balance thing. She is such a little daredevil - it's exhausting trying to keep up with her! Such a contrast to Julia, who has always been cautious and tentative, especially when trying something new. Julia actually used to cry when she was first able to stand unsupported - not because she couldn't do it well, but because she felt nervous without me holding onto her hands. It's a whole different world watching Madeleine as she throws her entire body over Julia's art table rung, or attempts to pull up using the wall and loses her grip and bonks her head on the baseboard, or gets her body wedged underneath the chair seat.

On the subject of new fancy moves, Julia had her first class of the spring session of Creative Movement yesterday, and she was happy as a clam when I picked her up. She ran over to me and exclaimed, "Mommy, we didn't do any of the things I don't do today. I participated in EVERYTHING!" Hooray!