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                    ``The Straight Poop on Heather''

   15 December 1994                                   Vol. 1, No. 4
   Editor-in-chief: Heather      Contributing Editors: John & Marie
                                         Fashion Editor: Aunt Susan
     

                     !!! FLASH !!! NEWS ALERT !!!

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           ***              EXTRA! EXTRA!                 ***
           ***            READ ALL ABOUT IT!              ***
           ***    AMAZING CRAWLIN' 'n' STANDIN' BABY!     ***
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Today, when I visited Heather at day care at lunch, there were two
notes on the board:

    "Heather pulled up to stand on the bookcase."

This we knew she could do.  At day care, she'd only propped herself
in a semi-standing position on the mattress, but hadn't pulled all the
way up.  But she's done that at home, so no big.

BUT the second note said:

    "Heather crawled forward."

This is new and exciting!  So far, she's crawled backwards, squirmed
sideways, occasionally wriggled forwards, and often toppled in various
directions, but never before made any actual forward progress.  Of
course, I wasn't going to believe this until I saw it with my own
eyes, and with the encouragement of her mom sitting a few feet in
front of her (okay, I gave her an extra incentive by having her
pacifier prominently displayed), she managed to crawl at least 5 or 6
"steps" all by herself!  There are still a few bugs to work out
(initial movement was retrograde; only after parameter adjustments was
forward progress made), but Heather has officially entered the Age of
Mobility.  Watch out, everyone, here she comes.

(I can just hear Elin now:  "Jeez, you'd think that Marie's baby
*invented* crawling!"  Oh, well, we moms have to be goofy sometimes.)