The Roll-Over Queen

I'm laying blankets down on our filthy rug, trying to stay one step ahead of four and 1/2 month old Sophia who just figured out how to roll over completely. My goal is to create a semi-hygeneic barrier between her mouth and the cathair that's embedded in the berber, but its not working. There's a sharp black hair stuck with drool to the side of her mouth. I break to applaud her efforts and she looks at me with a dimpled toothless grin. My roll-over queen.

It's a scary development really. "Now you have to watch her all the time," my mother, my boss, my friends warned me the first time she rolled from back to front. And I do. But now, rolling is a mode of transportation. It can take her across a room. And it would be one thing if she was lazy, but Sophia is motivated as hell. She can stay on her stomach for forty-five minutes, air-planeing and butt-arching her way over to a toy I've placed just out of reach. She grunts and retches from the effort, but she always gets her toy. In these moments, I catch a glimpse of her personalitity--determined, perservering, perfectionistic. And I don't know if its a blessing or a curse.