It is so, so, so exciting to see your baby take her first steps. The expression of amazement, concentration, and joy on her face, the adorable, wobbly, tentative steps, the priceless moment when they realize that nothing is holding them up. Cue startled expression, loss of balance, and ker-plop onto the floor.

Having spent the last couple of months looking after Daycare Baby, a crawling baby who is now 16 months old, the most common thing I was asked by friends and strangers alike was “is she walking yet?”

She wasn’t, and I know that the average baby starts walking somewhere around their first birthday. So, she’s later than average, but still in the normal range. And just lately, although I know the question is well intentioned, it’s getting just a little annoying.

There’s more to babies that just walking. Do you ever feel that too much pressure is placed on just a couple of milestones, first steps, first word?

$20 robot dogs from the toy section of Target walk and talk. Our babies are infinitely more complex than that, so how about some love for other, less lauded milestones?

Recognizing his/her own name. Babies realize that the word you keep using around them means that you are talking to them somewhere between 5 and 8 months. At birth, babies don’t have much concept of themselves as an individual. Recognizing that they they have a name is part of building their own identity.

Empathy for others. Even as early as six months, babies get upset when other children cry. Learning to understand other people’s emotions is a major factor that separating humans from robot dogs.

Understanding that objects have a function. Before about 12 months, everything that’s not food or other very familiar objects is simply an interesting plaything. Or a boring object. But one day, baby realizes that all these objects like keys, cellphones, hairbrushes, are for something, and that’s when she’ll stop chewing the toy cellphone and instead, hold it to her ear and babble into it.

Building towers from blocks Your budding engineer might be able to do this at 9 months, maybe not until over a year. Stacking things on top of other things helps babies understand how the physical world works.

Sometimes parents can get caught up in the milestone charts, and almost believe that if their baby walks late, then everything about their development is behind. In almost all cases – not true.

Babies have so much to learn, and they all do it in a different order. So the baby who walks late, is busy developing less dramatic, but equally valuable skills. And babies who walk early may learn to do other things a little later. It’s all totally normal.

If you are worried about your baby’s development, check with his/her pediatrician.

What has been your favorite unsung milestone for your baby? One of mine is when my son figured out at only a few months where the milk was, and started yanking my shirt down. OK, only when he did it at home. Another one is when he worked out how to slide down a slide by himself. How about you?

I’ve never been the kind of person to refer to the dog as my furry baby, or buy her outfits, or attempt to carry her around in a fluffy pink crystal embellished dog handbag.  Still, I love my dog and I think she’s a bit fond of me, in a “oh, there’s that person who walks me and puts food in my bowl” way.

So when I got pregnant, I wasn’t too worried that the dog would feel like she was replaced and get upset or jealous of the baby. And she wasn’t, as long as she kept getting food and walks.  Well, there were a few instances when I was especially sleep deprived with a newborn and the dog was hungry and my brain couldn’t work out what she wanted. Dog barks. I look at her dimly.  Dog stands by her empty food bowl and whines. The gears start to turn slowly in my mind. Dog tries to hack her way into the dog food bin. Oh! Food. Yes. That only took about five minutes to work out.

And so things went smoothly, until the baby started crawling. Do you know what the most fascinating thing in the whole world to a crawling baby is? Dog or cat food bowls. No toy can compete. Mom and dad are dull in comparison. There’s water to splash, either squishy wet food or interesting kibble (yum), dog cooties and dog drool, and the dog or cat will appear and query what baby is up to, plus mom will scream and remove baby which is the best way to make a baby want to do it again.

The dog (or cat) is also a bewitching creature. I have a theory that babies with a pet in the home start crawling earlier than those who don’t, because they want to be like the dog.

And they feel good too. Tail to pull, fur to grab, ears to poke fingers in, whiskers to yank. Sharp claws and teeth do not mix well with delicate baby skin so babies must always always always be supervised around animals and that includes the gentle creature that you’ve had since she was a puppy/kitten and who has never hurt a fly. Any animal can snap or scratch if baby is hurting or annoying them.

I’m currently trying to teach Daycare Baby to be gentle with our dog. The routine goes like this. Daycare Baby crawls up to dog, attempts to whack dog in the face. I grab her and hold her hand and stroke the dog gently. “Gentle, gentle” I say. So far, this has not worked.

It took my toddler son a while to understand the concept of “gentle” so I know that I have to persevere and try to protect the dog as best I can until she does get it.

Did I say that my toddler son understood the concept of “gentle”? Yes, I did, and he does understand. But one caveat: he understands but he’s quite capable of pretending he doesn’t. He’s also much faster than me and has pulled the dog’s ears several times. Toddlers are rarely being mean when they hurt animals, there’s no malice when they pull tails, they are interested in the reaction it gets, and it’s often a good one from the animal and the parent.

So my policy with toddler and the dog is keeping calm, removing him from the dog and quietly but firmly telling him that he’s hurting the dog when he does that, and he must not pull her ears or throw things at her or poke her.

That one is taking some time to work too, but he’s getting better. And the spontaneous moment of kindness to the dog – stroking gently, wanting to help feed her – make me hopeful that he’ll grow up and be nice to animals.

Please tell me I’m not the only Mommy who has this problem.

First of all, let me admit to you that I think the world of my kids. I adore them, I think they’re are the best thing ever. I get to spend all day long with them, and although they do a really good job of wearing me out I’m still pleased as can be to have the opportunity to be with them during these preschool years.

Here is the thing: Sometimes I feel like I get over-touched. With two kiddos crawling all over me throughout the day there just comes a point when I have to walk away from all the physical contact for a moment or two to reprogram and reset. My poor husband comes home from work and wants a nice long hug and sometimes by that point I’ve just had enough.

Don’t get me wrong; I love snuggling with my family and spending time with them, but for one reason or another there just comes a point around 3:00 or so where I just can’t handle one more person tugging at my arm or wrapping themselves around my leg.

This started when my first baby was born and I was nursing. I just got to a point where I felt like my body was giving, giving, giving, and needed occasional breaks. All it takes is about three or four minutes of having some time to myself before I’m ready for another great snuggle, but is it possible that I just get over-touched? Am I the only Mommy who has this problem? If I am, I’m going to feel like a complete wacko. If I’m not the only Mommy with this issue then I’ll feel much better about myself.

The first movement milestone your baby will reach is likely to be rolling over. Most babies roll over from their front to their back first, but some do it the other way around.

There is an enormous variation in when babies start rolling over. Some can do it before 2 months, some don’t roll until 6 months or later. It’s all completely normal. My son rolled over once at 8 weeks, then he didn’t bother to do it again until 5 months.

But the first time baby will roll is usually when they are on their changing table, or near the edge of the couch. Are they trying to give us heart attacks? I think so. So as the baby books say, keep a hand on them while they are on something because they will do their best to fall off.

Babies will learn to roll over all by themselves, but you can encourage your baby to start rolling by giving them lots of tummy time, and, if they enjoy it, gently rolling them over so they can experience what it feels like.

Once they can roll, there’s no stopping them! Some babies love rolling so much they roll to move about instead of crawling, which is hysterical to watch.

What’s next? Rolling over is the first step towards moving – once your baby can flip over onto her tummy, she’ll start doing press-ups, and next is crawling. She’ll be so happy about all she’s learning to do – it’s an exciting time for both of you!

I thought I did a good job baby-proofing our home. I researched the subject on the web, came up with my list, and presented the “honey do list” to my husband. He dutifully began working on the list so as to make the house safe for our precious little one long before our son was even creeping.

We thought we had it covered. We didn’t. Despite our watchful eyes, his 4 attentive older sisters, countless hours of research and an incredible amount of time spent purchasing and installing baby safety products, our little one can still find dangerous things to do.

For example, he discovered that if he dug his finger in at such an angle, he could get the grout and marbles(yes, real marbles) out from between the custom tiles in the living room. He discovered that if he rammed his walker at a certain speed, he could pop open the child safety latches. He found that he could stretch his arm far enough out the cat door to grab sticks and stones if he pressed his head tightly to the door. His hand was just the right size to stick under his sister’s door to get some “Polly Pocket” pieces–the ultimate forbidden prize!

He found out that dog food tastes pretty good and that the fish tank will sway if he bangs on the stand hard enough. He discovered it is possible to topple the garbage can. He’s also learned that the dog will eat his paperboard books if given the opportunity. Yesterday, he decided to try to crawl into the cat’s litter box.

On one hand, I’m thrilled with his eye hand co-ordination and frankly, his creativity. On the other hand, I’m amazed at the amount of destruction he can actually get into even though he’s very well supervised. So much for those lists! To think I actually thought after 5 kids that I had a clue. He sure showed me!

I’m finding that daily, my husband and I are “tweaking” the baby-proof list and coming up with our own solutions to the safety problems. For example, I covered the custom tile job with a carpet that I taped down. We actually attached the fish tank stand to the wall so it isn’t able to wobble at all. I re-organized my daughter’s room so she no longer stores her Polly Pocket dolls and accessories near the door and lectured her about how she needs to play with them at the far corner of her room, and how the door needs to absolutely stay shut.

Even so, our son is still one step ahead of us. I predict that just when we get the house baby proofed for our crawling protege, he’ll begin walking–and we’ll begin baby-proofing again.

So my little boy, Gus, is an over-achiever. Okay – I just like to say that because he’s 95% in height and 93% in weight. But hey, that’s well above average right? In practicality, he’s a big, happy, vocal, very tactile guy.

But at 9 months, he hasn’t really shown any indication that he’s interested in crawling. Frankly, we haven’t really encouraged it either. He rolls, rotates, and pushes up – but he seems to know that if he stares at a toy long enough and uses “The Force”, it’ll come to him. Or at least we’ll hand it to him.

My wife has a Master’s degree in Early Childhood Education and knows all about milestones and development in infants. So if she’s not concerned, I’m not concerned.

We have several friends with kids roughly the same age as Gus and most of their kids are crawling. We’ve seen the work it takes to chase them around and thus, we haven’t put the pressure on Gus to get his limbs moving. Why push the kid?

And then came tonight. I watched him, sitting up, playing innocently with a rubber ducky – carrying on some kind of conversation that only an infant and rubber ducky would understand when he tossed the ducky a country mile (okay, maybe it was only four feet, but I have great Sandy Koufax hopes for him) and fixate on the duck in a way I’d not observed before.

He was going to get that duck, come hell or high water.

Gus leaned forward onto his hands. His hands gripped the floor with great determination and he lurched forward with his torso. He looked almost as surprised as I did when his chubby little legs followed – first one knee, then the next. In seconds, he relocated his duck and looked at me with great satisfaction only to discover my jaw had dropped. He crawled.

And so here we go – the comfort of what my wife called the “flower pot” stage, where you can plop him down with a toy and confidently know he’s really not going anywhere, is over. My boy is crawling.

And even though I know my free time will be consumed with chasing him down, I couldn’t be more proud of him. The grin has yet to leave my mug. I even called my parents to tell them.

My boy is mobile.

If any of you have crawling stories, I would love to see them and share them with our friends – your comments are appreciated!