Roly-poly Jakey

You may recall that Jacob first rolled from his back to his tummy the night before his 4th month day. It took him about a week to really get the hang of it, after which he became Weeble-like in that if you set him down on his back and turned yours for a second, he'd be on his belly.

We did a lot of tummy time with Jacob in the beginning. My theory was, if I needed to help Isaac for a minute, like for a diaper change, Jacob went on his tummy to better occupy himself, even if by "occupy himself" here I mean "scream bloody murder." Those diaper changes et cetera add up, and over the course of a day I would imagine Jacob was getting between 30 minutes and an hour of tummy time a day. Scream all you want, my pet, I said. Ees goot for you.

And now look at him. So far, he can only roll over his left shoulder. Today, seeing a block that he wanted to get lying away from his right arm, he was making major strides to roll over his right shoulder. He didn't quite get there yet, but it was the first time he'd really tried.

While on his tummy, he can do the most amazing things -- he's not even 5 months, but he can go places. He can slowly spin himself entirely around on his belly to get to toys he wants, and he can also do a sort of tortoise-speed, unofficial army crawl to move sideways or ahead. He is also starting to arch his body, straightening his legs and pushing against the floor with his feet to bring his butt straight up in the air. Isaac started doing this about a month and a half before he started crawling. This month and a half was quite possibly the angriest time in Isaac's life, where he was so frustrated in his ability to crawl that he would scream and yell what could only be deciphered as baby profanities. We look forward to the same in Jacob.

Another thing he is enjoying that probably helped him to roll in the first place is his yoga-master flexibility, wherein he brings his legs up almost over his head so as to better chew on his toes. This effectively makes him into a Jakey-ball. His feet have started to smell, and at first I was completely baffled -- the kid doesn't even wear socks -- but then I thought about how his toes are probably now a repository for milky curds, and it all started to make more sense.




I realize in these cute pictures he is lying on his back, but I mainly wanted to show them here to brag about his great quilt. An adorable and distant great-aunt of mine made this for him for his baptism; she also made Isaac a beautiful Beatrix-Potter-themed quilt when he was born. Jacob loves his quilt and spends most of his rolling time trying to shove as much of it in his mouth as he can. And it does a nice job of accentuating his big blue eyes, don't you think?