Sunday, 19 January 2014: Two Hundred and Ninety Three Days Old.

Ayla is so close to crawling!

She’s so close in fact, that I can no longer claim Ayla to be “non-mobile” because she’s now clearly managing to get to places she shouldn’t be, and grab hold of things she shouldn’t get.

I’m not sure if maybe it’s the freedom of her walker that’s driven Ayla to find new ways of adventuring, or if it’s just a natural progression spurred on by nothing more than time, but if I were to make the call I’d say that Ayla will be completely, and unassistedly, on the go within a fortnight.

At the moment Ayla’s crawl is more like bulldozing; instead of using her knees Ayla digs in her toes and stiffens her legs with such force that her arms collapse and she face plants, like a bulldozer bucket driving into the dirt.

But after each face plant Ayla pushes herself back up onto her hands and knees and repeats the process, over and over like an awkward uncoordinated caterpillar.

Although Ayla’s newfound way of traveling takes lots of time and plenty of effort, she has been managing to travel fair distances before succeeding, or surrendering, in her journey.