Ever since Madeline has been about four months old Sarah and I have been watching for her to start rolling. It is the step before crawling and walking that most babies take as their major leap into movement beyond being planted on the floor like a mushroom. Madeline has shown limited interest in rolling on her own during this period and has gotten fussy when we place her on her stomach and try to get her to roll over. But last night I awoke in the middle of the night and found that she was unhappy because she had managed to flip onto her stomach and was crying while holding her head up in a downward dog position. I was pretty proud of this feat so I called Sarah in to confirm and notorize this self flippage as the second witness. Tonight when she awoke she was bopping around her crib and was pounding her feet above her then slamming them back down onto the crib. It didn't look like she was angry so much as playing with the crib as if she were a budding gymnast. I left her for a while and when I found her she had done a 180 and moved about one full roll away from where she was. My take on it was that she was learning how to move and was both excited about this freedom and learning because she was upset that she wanted a midnight snack. Eventually I picked her up and delivered her to Sarah.

I think the days of the stationary baby are not going to last much longer. It may be another 60 days or it could be as little as tomorrow before Madeline can do her own version of the Boston Marathon by crossing a blanket or even a full carpet length. I have to worry much more about her falling now since she spends a good portion of time above the ground. About a week ago she somehow figured out how to move off of the couch and fell the foot from the couch to the floor. She wasn't too happy about learning about gravity this way and Sarah and I were super worried about her little fall. I guess we were lucky because Brittany Spears, who has shadowed us with a baby at about the same time as Madeline, had a bad experience reported in all of the tabloids when her son fell off the high chair and had a skull fracture. This time is a time to be extra vigilant because once you can move you can fall very easily and all of the stationary times can lull us parents into a false sense of security when we leave the little ones.