Sitting tight

My cousin’s baby started crawling at 5 months. Five. Months. He was walking before he turned 9 months, and now he’s a terrifying 11-month-old who can back his way off her bed and is way too interested in the stairs. And then there’s our 9-month-old cutie pie, who has yet to figure out even the most basic understanding of that whole mobility thing.
Blame it on me—I carry this girl everywhere, and her floor time is pretty limited. Actually, don’t blame me. Blame the gangly puppy racing around here and the geriatric, half-blind pug who would stumble right over her, no problem. Blame her three older siblings who, no matter how many times I remind them that our furniture is not a jungle gym and our lovely hardwood floors are not a racetrack, leap all over everything like little monkeys and routinely try to bring balance bikes and scooters into the house.
The upshot of all that is this: Our floors are not safe. With the exception of the upstairs playroom, where she plays happily for an hour or so four to five days a week while I sit alongside her and work, our baby just doesn’t spend time on the ground. We rotate her from our arms to her hanging highchair to her jumper, pretty much. We’ll prop her up on the couch next to us or alongside one of the kiddos sometimes, but that’s about the extent of where she hangs out in the house.
She’s an expert sitter, but when she’s done with sitting, well, she’s still sitting. If I’m seated behind her, as I often am, leaning back against the wall with my laptop, she’ll kind of crane her head around and flap her arms up and down and squawk at me. Even when she’s on her tummy, the concept of crawling or army crawling or slithering or scootching—basically any kind of locomotion—is totally beyond her at this point.
With our oldest, we spent ages propping him up in a crawling position and modeling crawling technique and dangling enticing items just out of reach. (I know, right?) We were so young and foolish. And for all of that, I can’t even remember how old he was when he actually did crawl. Nine months? Ten? I know he didn’t walk until he was past his first birthday.
Google tells me that most kids crawl between 7 and 10 months. So maybe she’ll surprise us in the next four weeks. But probably not. And either is fine by me. That’s the benefit of experience. Four kids on, we’re totally secure in the knowledge that eventually, this kid will crawl. Or not. Maybe she’ll go straight to walking. That’s cool, too. Either way, I’m certain she’s going to kindergarten on her own two feet.