There Were 5 in a Bed...

... and the little one said, "Roll over!"

We've seen it coming for some days now.  But today she made it all the way and all on her own.  She rolled over.  But instead of rolling from her front to her back (which is easier and usually learned first), she rolled from her back to her front.  Ella has always liked sleeping on her side, and we've even termed her sleeping position "shrimping."  (For some reason, I think she looks like a giant shrimp.  Maybe it's the large head to body proportions.)  She figured out how to swing her top leg over while laying on her side and push herself up onto her elbows and forearms.  It takes a lot of grunting and whining and frustrated quips, but she gets there.  She did it a couple times yesterday with some assistance from me, but today, while she was supposed to be napping in her crib, she did it all on her own.  In her crib.  While I watched on the monitor, excited and horrified.  Excited because it's such a great feat for such a small little body.  Horrified because she hasn't learned to flip from her front to her back yet, and the idea of her rolling onto her tummy in the middle of the night and getting stuck makes me super nervous.  So of course, I take a picture before running upstairs to get her.

Instead of falling asleep, she chose to exercise instead.

That's my little Babycakes.  She has an agenda of her own.  Now that she's rolling over, I'm assuming the crankiness and clinginess we've been experiencing with her the past few days was because of her developmental leap.  Learning a new ability is exhausting work and she needed the extra comfort.

Tonight, after her bath, while I was trying to get her pajamas on, she rolled over again.  And again.  And again.  Adam got to witness it for the first time, and we just kept cheering her on as she kept flipping herself over on our bed.  It was hard not to help her when she was trying to get her bottom arm out from under her, but we knew she needed to work through the frustration and do it on her own.  And we couldn't be more proud!  (That being said, we'll be watching the baby monitor extra close tonight.)