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There are a lot of baby milestones that you look forward to, and some that you sort of dread. The crawling thing is a little anxiety-making sometimes (baby mobility! danger lurking everywhere! must! pay! attention!), but definitely something that I was ready to see happen.

The first tooth, not so much. Time and teeth, however, wait for no mom. I love the completely toothless, huge gummy grin that I get from Abby whenever she’s especially pleased with something. Teeth in a baby smile are a definite indicator that the baby…well, isn’t so much a “baby” anymore.

Abby’s been “teething” for what seems like forever now - the drooling, the irritability, the chewing (oh, the chewing) - but not a tooth to be found. So tonight when I put her down to bed and she kept bolting upright and screaming, I was at a loss. I took her temp (normal), and gave her Ibuprofen anyway. I held her, rocked her, and all was well until I’d put her down again. Her nose was running - whether from the crying or not, who could tell? Broke out the snot-sucker and cleared that out, plugged in the vaporizer in case that might help. (I’ve discovered that sometimes parenting is like taking a very scattershot attack at an unknown, unseen enemy, at best.)

And then, finally, the lightbulb went on. Maybe it’s the teething thing again, we said. So Daddy broke out the Anbesol and stuck his finger in…and there was the tip of a tooth, finally broken through! The end of an era, I suppose…but hopefully now she’ll get some sleep.

Abby is just about 10 1/2 months old now, and I’ve often wondered whether she would go straight from her special “speed rolling” form of movement to walking. She hasn’t shown a whole lot of interest in crawling, pulling up, cruising, or any other form of locomotion. No matter how many times I remind myself that every baby develops at their own pace, and she’s doing a lot of things that other babies aren’t, it’s hard not to wonder whether she’s falling a little behind in that regard. (And wondering whether it’s because of her weight gain issues, and do I need to push harder to find an answer to that, or…)

Finally, though, last week she started really looking like she might crawl. She’d get up on all fours and stay there for longer and longer periods of time, pushing herself with her arms until she’d fall down and roll to wherever she was going. By Friday, she was moving one knee along and the other knee was flailing around wondering what to do. We spent most of the weekend on the floor, letting her work it out and see if she could get it all together, but she wasn’t quite there.

And then, this morning, she did it! Slowly, and not too steadily, but she moved from one end of the nursery to the other without her belly hitting the floor once. As the day went on, she got more and more steady, and by the time we were at Kindermusik this afternoon she was able to show off her latest skill for the whole group.

I guess that babyproofing stuff should get out of the shopping bag and installed in the house now, for sure!