While the news was delivered via Facebook a few days ago, video confirmation arrived today. My niece can crawl. I almost witnessed her first crawling moments live last month. It was her father’s (and my brother’s) post-master’s degree celebration with I Am Woman by Helen Reddy playing in the background. It was the perfect setting. But Ellie, apparently, wasn’t ready.

This week, however, the spirit moved her to propel herself along the ground on all fours, complete with an attempt to stand up:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnhziaEuI1c]

Upon review, I have some notes for Ellie. First, she clearly runs out of room to crawl. She needs to learn the difference between a sprint crawl and a distance crawl. This will come with time. Second, she does attempt to stand up at one point. That will come with more leg strength, but it’s never too early to start working on good transitions.

Of course, the crawling elicits excitement and fear from my mother, brother and sister-in-law. My mother and brother apparently had a discussion about Ellie, crawling and the cat door that leads to their basement. Apparently, Ellie can not fit through the cat door. (I must assume that they’ve already tested this theory.) My mom is still a bit concerned.

“Those are concrete steps!” she said to me, as we waited for the Jets and Sharks to begin to rumble at a revival performance of West Side Story. “I mean, it’s concrete!”

“Yes, but if you’ll recall, my brother was once dropped as a baby and his head took out an entire table leg,” I pointed out. “He is currently pursuing his doctorate degree, so you know, he turned out OK. Although that table was always wobbly after that.”

Yeah, there was no comeback to that one. Point for me.

Don’t worry Ellie. I won’t use your head to take out a table leg. But if you could crawl in front of some people who are in my age group at the Musselman Triathlon next month, well, that would be swell.