Healthy Competition

Last week Katherine stood up on her own for the first time.

Prior to this event, Caroline showed little interest in getting on her two feet. She is very adept at crawling, and is in fact a much faster crawler than her sister.

However, since seeing Katherine get on her feet, Caroline has suddenly taken a keen interest in standing up.

I'm convinced Caroline is working hard to catch up to her sister's development because:

1. Katherine gets oodles of attention every time she stands up on her own; and
   
2. Caroline realizes that crawling will soon be as obsolete as the horse-drawn carriage, and she's gotta keep up with the new technological advances.
   

Now, I'm no child development specialist. There may be someone out there who will tell me it is impossible for an 11 month old to try to learn a new skill just to keep up with her sibling. They will say that Caroline is merely copying Katherine.

But I disagree. I think that Caroline is definitely trying to keep up with Katherine because she wants the same attention that Katherine gets, and because she knows if she doesn't, her bigger sister will "literally" walk all over her!

Caroline has been practicing hard since Saturday to try to get up on her feet. She'll spend long minutes struggling to get to her feet, oblivious to everything around her.

This evening, I walked into our hallway, and caught Caroline practicing once again, and managed to catch some photos:

Not quite there yet -- but able to get her hands off the ground!
(click on photo for larger view)

This is harder than it looks!
(click on photo for larger view)

You'll notice that she's not quite there yet. The first photo is the extent to which Caroline can get onto her feet without holding onto anything. She can't quite straighten up her knees, so she's stuck in this squatting position, which of course makes me and Terri laugh whenever we see her do it.

She keeps at it though -- trying up to ten times in a row, after which she collapses in a tired heap and waits for us to reward her with a drink of juice and a snack.

Knowing how hard Caroline is working at it, my bet is that she'll be upright by this weekend.