Sitting Up

My aunt told me this great story years ago, and every time I think of it, I can’t stop laughing (of course, bear in mind that it is all in the delivery and she presents the story way better than I ever could). My uncle is a great skier, and every year they take a week long (at least) trip to Lake Tahoe where they gamble and shop, but my uncle mostly skis. After a while, my aunt decided she should learn how to ski too so they could enjoy it together. My uncle decided the best thing would be a ski instructor, and he hired one.

The ski instructor met with my aunt, and told her the first and most important thing to learn was how to get up after you fall. Seems reasonable enough, right? So he pushed her down. She then spent the next (insert an insane amount of time here) trying to get back up on her skis. I remember there being tears and remarks about some little punk five-year-olds skiing by without a care in the world really ticking her off. Eventually though, she found her way upright again and proudly stood, defiant, in front of her teacher (who had gone and got a cup of coffee in the meantime).

What happened next? He pushed her over again. My aunt took the skis off and walked away. She has never skied since, and is perfectly happy to have my uncle ski by his lonesome.

For some reason, this story comes to mind while I watch Brenna struggle to get to a sitting position, or topple over when we put her in one. While I am in no huge hurry to have Brenna reach the milestones of full-on crawling or walking, one that I am extremely anxious for her to reach is sitting up unassisted.

As I mentioned in her six-month update, Brenna is up there in the percentiles of her size, and with my short little arms and stubby little legs, hauling her around in a pumpkin seat is no fun. That said, I cannot wait for her to sit up unassisted so that I can change her pumpkin seat into a convertible, REAR-FACING, car seat. The only reason I still use the pumpkin seat is so that when I go to the store, I can just leave her in there since she can’t use the basket yet. The only problem will be then, where do I put Sammie? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it…

This being my goal, I work with her on sitting up a lot, and she’s getting close, although she is currently very amused by falling over, which is not helping the motivation at all. We tried to sit her with Carli Grace on the Fourth, but Carli, an expert at sitting up unassisted for some time now and wanting to help her friend learn too, seemed to take on the ski instructor’s training beliefs…