Baby athletics

Eli turned 6 weeks this Sunday. The day before, he actually flipped himself over, to our amazement. It was sort of accidental, but still impressive. He has long been able to lie on his belly and then hold his head partway up, sometimes using his hands to push up a little more. Lately he has been really pumping his legs in this position, so that if only he could hold himself up on his arms, he would crawl like a maniac. I think when he flipped there was a random alignment of some of these capacities: he raised up his head and shoulders, mostly with his left arm, then he kicked his left leg and his right arm somehow slipped underneath his body (that's really the key) and he kind of rolled onto his side. That was the first stage. I called to Amy "he's rolling! he's rolling!" and she came running in. Then as we watched it only took a few more seconds of squirming and kicking to complete the roll onto his back. Wow!

The Baby Book says babies generally can start flipping from belly to back at 3 months. So, just as I always knew, Eli's a genius.