XICREEPING AND STANDING
Now, at eight months old, began a fortnight of rapid development in movements, all branching out from the position on hands and knees which the baby often took as she sprawled on the floor.
First she hit on two ways of sitting up, beginning on hands and knees. One of them, in fact, had appeared in the last days of the preceding month. She would tilt over sidewise till she was half sitting, leaning on one hand, then straighten up, raising the hand—and there you are, sitting. The other way, a few days later, was to begin as before on hands and knees, separate the knees, and lift herself over backward till she was sitting, turning the legs out at the knee. No grown person but a contortionist coulddo it, for our hips have not enough play in the socket to carry the movement through the last inch or two; but babies’ joints are flexible. This became our baby’s regular method, and the position it left her in—legs spread out before her, bent directly out at the knee—was her every-day one for many months. Most babies, I believe, sit monkey fashion—legs straight, with soles turned in.
Watching carefully, we were sure that the baby did not at first use either method intelligently; she wanted to sit up, and shifted and lifted her body, scolding with impatience, and never knowing whether she would bring up in the desired position or not, till she found herself by luck where she wanted to be. In a few days, however, the right movements were sifted out from the useless ones, and she sat up and lay down at will.
In the same early days of the ninth month, another movement came of experimenting while on hands and knees—a backwardcreeping, pushing with the hands. The baby at once tried to utilize it to get to people and things, and it was funny to hear her chattering with displeasure as she found herself borne off the other way—backing sometimes into the wall, and pushing helplessly against it, like a little locomotive that had accidentally got reversed. She soon gave up trying to get anywhere by this “craw-fishing,” however, and then she enjoyed it, merely as movement.
The only reason I have heard suggested for this curious back-action creeping (which is not uncommon just before real creeping) is that the baby’s arms are stronger than the legs, and as a pushing movement with them is more natural than a stepping one, a backward impulse is given, which the baby, as a rule, resents with comical displeasure.
Next, from hands and knees the baby learned to rise to hands and feet; to kneel, and then to sit back on her heels; and to make sundry variations on these positions,such as kneeling on one knee and one foot, or sitting on one heel, with the other foot thrust out sidewise, propping her.
In spite of two or three chance forward steps, she was eight and a half months old before she hit at last on real creeping; then one day I saw her several times creep forward a foot or two, and presently she was rolling an orange about and creeping after it. I tried in vain to lure her more than a couple of feet, to come to me or to get a plaything; she would creep a step or two, then sit back on her heels and call me to take her. Until almost the end of this month, indeed, she would creep for but very short distances, and always to reach something, not for pleasure in the movement.
But while she fumbled in such chance fashion towards creeping, she was carried on towards standing by strong and evident instinct. She pulled herself up daily, not to reach anything, but from an overwhelming desire to get to her feet; and when she foundherself on them she rejoiced and triumphed. At this stage she almost invariably used alowobject to pull up by, so that she could lean over it, propping her weight with her hands—or with one hand, as she grew more confident. It was after the middle of the month that she first drew herself up, her knees shaking, by a chair, to reach a favorite plaything; but thereafter chairs became her great “stand by,” in a very literal sense.
In kneeling, too, she showed joy. She could not keep her balance on her knees for more than a few seconds, but while she did she exulted in the exploit, and patted and waved her hands in glee. Aside from standing and kneeling, her advances in movement were made with a curious lack of intelligent consciousness of what she was about, as well as of clear, compelling instinct. She seemed to progress by blind experimenting, selecting gradually out of a medley of others the acts and positions that were most useful and best fitted to the structure of her joints and muscles.
Many babies before this stage show the walking instinct quite clearly. If they are held from above, so that their soles press lightly on a flat surface, the legs will begin to make good stepping movements. Our baby had failed to make this response hitherto; in this fortnight, however, it appeared, very imperfectly and irregularly, but steadily better; and with another week she took great delight in the exercise.
Amid all these new movements, rolling rapidly declined and disappeared. The baby was absorbed in her new powers, and during the latter half of the month her joy in them was exquisite. She was a thing to remember for a lifetime as she played on a quilt spread on the lawn in the hot June days—sitting and looking about her with laughter and ejaculations of pleasure, gazing up with wonder and interest at the branches swaying in the warm breeze, watching the dog, creeping about and examining the grass with grave attention, pulling to her feet at our kneesas we sat by with our reading and sewing. And when we let her take the benefit of the warm weather, and creep about the floor stripped to the inmost layer of garments, arms and legs bare, she was at the height of joy. She would go from one position to another, sitting and kneeling, tumbling and scrambling and creeping about in endless content.
That she paid her price for all this in increased knowledge of pain I hardly need say. From the time she began to roll freely, she had collided with table legs and the like; and from then until she could walk, bumps and scratches and pinches were almost daily experiences. Her early creeping was so awkward that she would lose her footing, so to speak, and come down hard on her face, and her later and quicker creeping brought collisions; in standing by chairs she would lose hold and topple over; and in investigating rockers, window blinds, lids, and all manner of things, she did not fail to get her fingers hurt now and then, in spite of all vigilance.
In the main, she was surprisingly indifferent to these mishaps; even when the blow had reddened the skin, she would look sober only a minute, then, at a laugh and encouraging word, would smile and go on with her play. This was doubtless partly temperament: babies cry with nervous fright more than with the actual pain of a bump, and she was a baby of tranquil nerves. But her skin sensitiveness was probably still low.
With experience of pain, either her sensitiveness or her timidity grew, and she made more fuss than she did at first; and over some especially severe hurts she screamed with lusty good-will. Still, it was noticeable on the whole how little she was troubled in learning to balance and move about by the pains that strewed the way; and this, I think, must be the normal condition with healthy children.
I have spoken just now of the pride and joy that were shown over kneeling and standing. The joy, of course, was an old story:we have seen that every stage of advancing power had been accompanied by lively pleasure. But this feeling of pride, this exultation in herself as actor, was a new emotion, and quite characteristic of the higher type of self-consciousness the baby had entered on at about seven months old, as I have already related. In going through her little hand movements, too, she showed much consciousness and pride, looking prettily into our faces for approval, as she patted or waved her hands.
As the baby now approached nine months old, there was an indescribable dawning appearance of comprehension about her—an air of understanding her surroundings and getting into touch with our minds. She watched our movements not merely with curiosity, but with an apparent attempt to interpret them, sometimes with a curious, puzzled drawing of the mouth that looked like mental effort. Many things she did interpret perfectly well: for instance, if Ipicked a rose and held it up, smiling, she knew that it was for her, and broke into jubilation accordingly. She volunteered to play peekaboo from early in the month, holding up a cloth, basket lid, or whatever she had at hand, before her face, and peeping out with smiles. She made intelligent little adaptations in her own actions, such as pulling at the tablecloth to bring to her a paper that lay on it.
She seemed, by the latter part of the month, to understand vaguely a good deal that was said to her, when it was accompanied with a gesture. If I said, “Kiss aunty,” and offered my cheek, she would press her lips against it. She would look around to see if her mother shook her head with “No, no!” when she crept up to pull at the books on a low shelf. Her little list of accomplishments, waving and patting her hands, and so on, she would go through at the mere word, without any gesture.
One important development in the latterpart of the month was a little imitative cry, something like mewing, associated with the cats—important because of its bearing on the beginnings of language. It has long been a dispute whether language began with imitation of the sounds of nature, or with spontaneous ejaculations—“the bow-wow theory and the pooh-pooh theory,” as they were scoffingly nicknamed early in the course of the discussion. Our baby may seem to have given the weight of her authority to the bow-wow theory, for this mewing cry did in fact slowly develop months later into a name for “cat,” and might be called the first remote foreshadowing of a spoken word. But on the whole, with her and with other babies, the early stages of speech confirm the best recent opinion—namely, that language is a complex product, into which both imitation and ejaculation enter, with perhaps still other elements.
About a week before the baby was nine months old, some one looked up from dinnerand saw her standing by a lounge, steadied only by one hand pressed against it, while she waved the other in exultant joy. Her father sprang and caught her as she toppled, then set her on her feet within the circuit of his arms, but without support, for a few seconds. Her legs shook, but she stood without fear, in high delight.
After this, her standing at chairs grew rapidly freer and bolder, and the support she needed was daily less. At nine months old, she was absorbed in the desire to stand. She would hold on with one hand and lean down to pick up things with confidence and freedom. In the first week of the tenth month, she even liked to pull herself up to her feet, then deliberately let go, come down sitting with a thud, and look up laughing and triumphant. She evidently thought the coming down quite as fine an exploit as the getting up.
By this time she crept freely and rapidly, laughing with pleasure as she did so. If shewas laid on a blanket on the lawn, she no longer tumbled about contentedly within its area, but struck off across the grass, stopping to investigate carefully any plant or fallen leaf she came across. The medley of positions and movements had disappeared, and creeping and standing, as the fittest, had survived.
Within a week after she was nine months old, the baby began to get up to her feet by low objects, and then, instead of stooping over them, to abandon all support, straighten up, and stand alone for several seconds, greatly pleased with herself. Next she could stand a minute at a time, with such slight support as a fold of a gown in her hand, or in a corner, steadied only by her shoulders against the wall. She no longer plumped down to the floor, but lowered herself cleverly—once (in the second week of the month) without any support at all, having absent-mindedly let go of the chair. In a few days more, it was not uncommon for her to forget to hold on, and to stand a few seconds alone by achair; and if she was at some one’s knee, where she felt more confidence, she would let go on purpose, and try deliberately to stand alone.
Now began a period of diligent self-training in standing. As I sat on the grass and the baby played beside me, she would put her hands on my knee, lift herself to her feet, and balance on them as long as she could—seven seconds at the most, in the second week of the month, a quarter of a minute in the third, if her attention was called away from her own balance by some interesting sight. She would totter, stretch out her arms to recover her balance, circle with them just as we do (the movement must be highly instinctive), come down with a jolt and a peal of baby laughter, scramble to my knees, and up again. People are foolish to go to the matinée for amusement if they have a chance, instead, to sit flat on a lawn on a summer day, and assist at a baby’s standing lessons.
In these days there was evident again an intangible but great increase in the little one’s mental alertness, her eager curiosity in following our movements, her look of effort to understand, her growing clearness in grouping associations and interpreting what she saw.
Her handling of things had long developed into elaborate investigation, turning an object over and examining every side, poking her fingers into crevices, opening and shutting lids, turning over the leaves of books; and now she was no longer satisfied with investigating such objects as she came across by chance—she began to have a passion (which increased for weeks and months, and long made up a great part of her life) to go and find what there was to see. She crept to the window and stood at the low sill, to look out, beating the pane with her soft little hands and laughing in an ecstasy of delight if the dog wandered by. She crept into the hall and explored it, sitting downin each corner to take a survey, and to look up the walls above her. Her toys were neglected; she was impatient of being held in arms, and eager only to get to the floor and use her new powers. She crept happily about for hours from chair to chair, from person to person, getting to her feet at each, and setting herself cleverly down again; smiling and crowing at each success, and coming to us for applause and caresses. She did not want to leave the floor for her meals, and was reconciled to them only if she might stand at her mother’s side and take her milk or porridge in small doses, interspersed with play. She ran away from us on hands and knees, laughing, if she thought we were about to pick her up.
Outdoors her happiness was even greater than in the month before, and her cries of rapture as she looked up, down, and around, and realized her own activity in the midst of all the waving and shining and blooming things, were remarkable—uttered, as itwere, from the very deeps of her little soul, with that impassioned straining of the central muscles by which a baby throws such abandon of longing or ecstasy into his voice. We seem to have lost the vivid expressiveness of primitive cries in getting the precision and convenience of articulate words.
The sights and sounds of outdoors now contributed greatly to the little girl’s joy there. She had for some weeks noticed sounds more than ever before—the tapping of a woodpecker, for instance, or the stamping of a horse in the stable—and now she was quick to look and listen at the note of a bird. She watched the birds, too, for the first time, as they flew from tree to tree; and the profuse California flowers were objects of incessant desire and pleasure.
The power of communication was considerably increased in this month by the acquisition of one exceedingly useful sign. The way in which it was developed is an interesting example of the evolution of such signs.First the baby began to use her forefinger tip for specially close investigations; at the same time she had a habit of stretching out her hand towards any object that interested her—by association, no doubt, with touching and seizing movements. Combining these two habits, she began to hold her forefinger separate from the others when she thus threw out her hand towards an interesting object; then, in the second week of the month, she directed this finger alone towards what interested her; and by the third week, the gesture of pointing was fairly in use. She pointed to the woodshed door, with her mewing cry, when she wished to see the kittens; to the garden door, with pleading sounds, when she wished to be taken thither; to the special bush from which she wished a rose. She pointed in answer, instead of merely looking, when we asked, “Where is grandpa?” “Where is Muzhik?”
These questions can hardly have been understood, as questions; but it was morethan ever clear that she got some idea from a good deal that we said, and now by the words alone, without the help of gestures. Doubtless she knew several simple words—words of coming and going, of food, of the kittens and the dog and the horse.
All this time she had shown no great improvement in walking movements when held from above, and she had no particular ambition to walk. But in the last week of the month she began to edge along by the side of a chair, holding to it—a great advance.
The first attempts at climbing, too, appeared before she was quite ten months old. In the third week of the tenth month the baby had let herself down by her hands quite cleverly from a large chair in which she had been scrambling about—a feat that must have been quite instinctive, since she did it well and easily at the first try. The last day of the month, as she hovered at the foot of the stairs (a region about which she hadmuch unsatisfied curiosity), some one helped her to put her knee on the lower step. Thereupon she laid hold on the next one, and pulled herself up, and with the same help, mounted two steps more. At this point her aunty’s stereotyped appeal, “Don’t help her! let her alone, and let me see what she will do!” prevailed. A candle was set on a higher step as a lure, and, sure enough, the little thing, unaided, set her knee on the higher level, laid hold with her hands, and drew herself up. It is significant that true climbing movements should be so early and so easily caught at a single partial lesson; and I shall have occasion to say more about it before the story of the baby’s first year closes.
In the very last days of the tenth month came a wonderful spring upward in the little one’s intelligence about her surroundings, and in her power of communicating with us. It involved the real beginning of spoken words—for the cat cry of the month beforeremained by itself, leading to nothing more, and though it was the first sound that expressed an idea, it was not from it, but from this later root, that spoken language sprang and grew.
But the mental and language progress of these few days, just as the baby came to ten months old, was the beginning of a stage of development that belonged to the later months—a beginning too important to be crowded in at the close of a chapter that is mainly concerned with movement development. So I keep the account of it for the story of the eleventh month.