HOLD YOUR HEAD UP HIGH, JJ ! It all begins with TUMMY TIME

Dr Paul Hauck says,

'' Hold your head up high, and you will be calm, confident and assertive, whatever happens to you ''.

JJ's finally managed to hold his head up without wobbling it ! Hurrah ! He did it ! ( of course, thanks to daddy's training- TUMMY TIME ! ). Now he realises that he can see so much from that point of view. It just amazes him ! So, don't stop, never give up, hold your head high and reach the top.

I admit I was unaware. Who knew head lifting required such consideration? According to the Northwest Arkansas Times, it says....

Me, I thought babies innately learned how to lift their heads on their way to crawling the way babies have done for centuries. No, no, fellow unaware people. The rate at which infants conquer head lifting and begin scooching their diaper-clad behinds across the floor is now a source of concern.

But don't fret. A solution exists, because we fix stuff that ain't broke all the time. The answer to delayed head lifting is tummy time, which The Associated Press calls the "latest infant-stimulation craze" this side of obsessive-compulsive parents incapable of contemplating that things really will progress without their intervention.

As the AP reports, parent-and-baby programs from run-of-the-mill public schools to impossibly chic and obscenely expensive, big-city private schools are "adding tummy activities to their curricula." Yes -- curricula. For babies but a few months out of the womb. Progress is so stimulating.

Tummy time apparently stems from a shift in how babies are supposed to sleep. After years of being told to put infants on their stomachs, parents are now advised to lay babies on their backs in order to decrease the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Studies indicate that that risk has fallen with the revised sleeping-position directive, but parents are worried because some babies might now be slower to develop the head lifting that leads to crawling.

Which leads to walking. Which leads to talking. Which leads to memorizing multiplication tables and the first foreign language by 2.8 years. Which leads to introductory karate and ballet and piano lessons by 4.3 years. Which leads to honor roll in kindergarten at 5.5 years and then the best science project ever and student government and a semester abroad and band and gymnastics and, and, and -- right up to admittance into the most selective schools by 17.1, maybe 16.8 for early-admittance achievers.

So, you see, head lifting must, absolutely, no-doubt-about-it occur on time. Schedules to keep and goals to achieve, people. Experts recommend several sessions of tummy time per day. Except there's a problem. Some babies don't like all this tummy attention. They squirm, they shriek, they scream. They downright protest. Doesn't matter how many attempts mom makes at tummy time or how dutifully she times each session. One suspects babies instinctively know that which their parents can't grasp because, well, where would they fit in -- that most non-tummy-time infants will catch up on all development skills by 18 months. Now it's tummy time, next it'll be some in utero must-do and then it'll be some pre-conception gotta-do, because, honestly, who wants a normal child who progresses at his own rate.