We're on the move! (Nearly)

Backflips, Tick-Tock Clock, Scooting and the Crowd Dive: these are currently Jake's patented moves. At six months old, my clever little lad has all ready mastered rudimentary geometry and knows that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Therefore, if something interesting (or potentially interesting, read: remotely involving Owen) is going on behind him, rather than tediously turning his head in a circle, Jake will throw himself backwards to look at upside down. Awkward when he's in your arms, mildly alarming when he's in the Bumbo, and hilarious when he's sitting up on his own. We're convinced it's only a matter of time before he executes a true backflip.

Tick-Tock Clock has been happening for some time. Put Jake down on his back, with his head at 12 o'clock, and it will definitely not still be 12 o'clock when you come back. Although he's a geometry genius, he has no awareness of the 24 hour clock, so I'm unable to keep track of his rotations. But I'm sure he's zoomed right through noon/midnight a few times.

Scooting is a little more self-explanatory. Put Jake down on his front, and he'll try his hardest to get up on all fours. He'll do a little Superman - arms and legs all in the air, looks a little like he's swimming. He'll get his bum up, but without arm support (picture yoga's Downward Dog, but on his face, instead of his hands). He'll also push way, way up on his arms, grinning at all and sundry (yoga Cobra). The various combinations of these moves serve to push him backwards. Owen moved backwards right before he finally figured out how to go frontwards, so we're pretty sure that's Jake's next step too. Only time will tell if he'll pick up Owen's trick of crawling on all fours on the carpet, and two hands, one knee, and one foot (for improved traction!) on the ceramic and hardwood.

Finally, the Crowd Dive. Jake loves to sit on the couch, and Owen loves to have him sit next to him. They're quite cute. But demonstrating again that whole shortest-distance-between-two-points understanding, Jake will often see something of interest on the floor, or on the ottoman, or on the other couch, and dive for it. Like a performer diving off the stage trusts his loyal fans to catch him and bear him up, he blindly trusts that either his dad or I am close enough to grab him. (He's also tried this from our laps - you have to be quick with this kid!) Geometry he's got. Physics and the laws of gravity we're working on.

On a completely unrelated note: for anyone out there who may have left their health-friendly stainless-steel waterbottle out in their Jeep during this recent spate of cold weather, causing it to freeze solid, and popping the concave bottom out into a convex, no-longer-capable-of-holding-the-bottle-in-an-upright position, you will be relieved to know that yes, it will go back to normal if you just thaw it out, and bash on the bottom a bit with a hammer. Just in case you were wondering.