Calisthenics

Clara Grace seems to do everything with a determination that would make any parents proud to watch. When learning to babble with new sounds, she furrows her brow and scrutinizes her Mommy and Daddy’s lips and tongue for long intervals before taking a turn. This determination also seems to have carried over into her motor achievements. Somewhere around the middle of her third month, Clara Grace began performing tummy crunches twenty at a time. It was as though she knew the next stage in her development was to strengthen her stomach muscles and wanted to accomplish this as quickly as possible. While seated on her Mommy or Daddy’s knees she threw herself forward until her head rested on her toes. Next she sprung upright again with her arms raised in triumph. She repeated this in rapid succession multiple times. Now, in the middle of Clara Grace’s fifth month, she is rolling all around the room. At the beginning of the fifth month, she was rolling, but only with that determination mentioned earlier. Each roll was accompanied by all manner of grunts and wriggling. Two weeks of that, and she was flopping from front to back like a fish. Her Papa from Michigan commented, “Wow, I’ve never seen a baby roll on command like she does.” It’s true, Clara Grace, rolls to her parents when they call from several feet away, and grins proudly on hearing their applause.