A few people have asked if Sydney has the crawling thing down yet. I'll give that a definitive "No!". If fact, she's yet to do anything that really resembles crawling unless you count laying on her tummy and pushing herself backwards.
It's actually kind of painful to watch. Envision Meghan or me or both of us sitting at the side of the play mat with Sydney laying on her tummy in the middle. Her head is up, she's grinning at us, and she's partially supported on her arms. She clearly wants to come over to us. We're cheering her on.
Sydney's first move is to push with her arms which slides her back about 3 inches. That's not what she wanted to do at all. She looks at us with a touch of a concerned expression and then pushes again. Again she slides another 3 inches backwards. Now she's getting mad. She knows she is sliding backwards and grips the floor to prevent sliding further. It's as if the wall is sucking her in. And then with all her might she strains against the unseen force and (you guessed it) slides back 3 more inches. This continues. Her frustration builds. The tone of her squeals becomes angrier. She perhaps screams at the mat as she slides further away. Eventually she runs out of room and/or we rescue her from this unearthly torment.
Like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill only to watch it fall and try again, Sydney tires to crawl each day whether on the floor or on our laps while we're holding her. Inevitably she gets stuck and we rescue her. The saga plays out again and again often multiple times in the same day sometimes within minutes or even seconds of the prior attempt. I will say that despite her complete lack of success, Sydney is determined and keeps trying. Hopefully that determination will stick with her as she grows.
Crawling... or not
Re: Crawling... or not
She did figure out how to make the walker go forwards yesterday. Previously, it had also been stuck in reverse, like her crawling. And once she figured that out, it was all systems go. Crawling will probably be the same. One day it will just click. I hope.