My granddaughter recently celebrated her first birthday. She lives in Los Angeles with my daughter and son-in-law and two small dogs she does her best to communicate with gently. She has a smile that melts hearts.

I live in New York, and I count on text messages from my daughter to bridge the 2,500-mile distance between us with photos and FaceTime videos.

Back in November, I was treated to a video of my granddaughter testing her crawling skills. It’s a marvel, really, to watch the effort — a combination of pulling herself across the floor using both hands and arms, dragging her legs, partially getting up on her knees.

Just a month later, when I was out for a visit, she’d gotten the hang of it. With a wiggle to her crawl, she would move along, and when it was time to change directions, she would sit and swivel around on her butt. What struck me most was how efficient her moves were. Without what we think of as conscious thought her entire body was saying I can do this.

By the time we visited in March she was using anything within reach — a drawer handle, a tabletop, my husband’s knee — to get herself in an upright position. Her birthday coincided with Oscar weekend. Attempting to put her to sleep while we sat in the living room watching the Academy Awards on TV was a noble effort. As exhausted as she was from being the center of attention, the activity outside her bedroom was much too appealing.

Activity is the operative word. It wasn’t just our company she craved, joining in the watch party. She wanted to do her own thing — crawling from living room to kitchen and back, in and out of her dog’s bed or heading over to anything within reach that gave her enough leverage to hoist herself up and begin doing that move known as cruising (i.e., walking sideways and holding onto whatever is in reach for support).

To continue reading click here: Medium