(Un)Stuck on Standing

Piper’s always done fairly well for herself in the gross motor department.  But while she’s been able to obtain most of the “big” skills without much issue, her transitional skills INTO the next higher position have been MAJOR hurdles to overcome (“out of” she’s always done easily.  And correctly.  Go figure).

She HATES being off balance.  We’ve always figured she HATES being out of control, so anything that requires a balance shift has been very difficult for her to process.  Remember last year when we had issues getting her into sit?  I had to tell myself that she SURELY wouldn’t go to preschool able to walk, but not get into sit by herself.  Sure enough, one day she just DID IT.  Like it was no big deal.  Like she had done it 1000 times before.  Piper only does things when she’s 100% sure that she can.  And that she can do it right.  NOT before. 

Getting into stand has been our current issue.  Yup- my kid has been exclusively walking for months now, but NOT getting into stand from plantigrade on her own.  If she needed to, she’d crawl over to a surface to stand.  In fact, she didn’t independently stand (not knowingly, anyway) until she was walking about 15-20 feet on her own. 

I haven’t been  pushing the issue much, knowing that Piper will do it her way when she thinks she’s ready.  And until she gets that confidence, there’s no point in getting frustrated.  I was ready to do an intensive “training” where I spend all day on the floor with her forcing her to get into stand on her own without pulling up on something EVERY TIME.  Mostly because as my belly grows, this feat was getting harder and harder with each passing day, and if I was going to do it, I needed to just do it. 

Piper cut me a break last week- and decided to do it on her own!  I was on the phone with a couple of coworkers when Piper, while standing on the hardwood floors with slippery footy pajamas on, decided she was going to bring me a book.  She can’t crawl with a book, so she had to stand to bring it.  And of course, since I was on a conference call, I couldn’t say anything.  No dancing.  No singing.  No hoorahs.  Just like she’d been doing it for months. 

And she hasn’t stopped.

My house, unfortunately, is bearing the brunt of our new-found disaster maker.  I’m sure the only reason she decided she’d do this new skill is because she wanted to transport toys from one room to another.  And by “toys”, I mean remotes, phones, clothes, shoes, toilet paper, books, and, of course, actual toys.  It’s quite comical to see her carrying items almost as big as she is.

She is one determined child.