Crawling and Kneeling

Today Raphael worked on two new gross motor skills

1. using his knees to help himself crawl
2. pulling himself to a kneeling position

He has been using his arms to commando crawl forwards and crawling backwards on all fours for quite a while now, but only today have I actually seen his legs helping him move forward. He certainly isn't "crawling on all fours"; he looks a little bit like a lizard with his knees splayed out wide and his legs kicking/swimming along behind him. He used to be quite slow, but with his new found propulsion he can zoom across the room quite quickly to new and interesting things that he should not be touching.

Pulling himself up to a kneeling position came as a surprise tonight also. When I saw him do it, I quickly grabbed my camera and took a wild shot without doing any lighting tests. Then I managed to get him to do it again with a bit of toy encouragement and my wife grabbed the camera and took a few quick snaps also.

Kneeling is an exciting development for us becuase doctors have told us that his underdeveloped ears will effect his ability to balance.