Joaquin, walking

Well, not exactly, but close. He loves it when I take both of his hands and let him step around the house, stopping to look at pictures of cats, grab at glasses of water, and look at his reflection in the brass fireplace enclosure. All I have to do is say "up" and he reaches out to grab my fingers and stand up proud.
But I have a secret.
Joaquin has yet to crawl. I'll be darned if he's not just going to skip it all together.
Right around when he turned 8 months I started looking for signs of mobility. Surely he was tiring of just sitting on the floor and playing with rattles and blocks. He smiled, he laughed, he started responding to his name, and he was completely content sitting on the floor with mom.
I started googleing "how to get your baby to crawl" and "how old are babies when they crawl" and it wasn't long before "why won't my baby crawl" and "what if my baby never crawls???"
The answer to all of these is, in my opinion, is another question. "Who cares?"
But I didn't get here on my own. Late one night I confessed to my girlfriend back home that I constantly question what I'm doing with Joaquin.
"What?" She said, "you seem perfect!"
Ahhh, the magic of the blog. It's easy to be blog-perfect, I told her. Then I disclosed that my baby is 11 months and still doesn't crawl and she said, "Who cares! Crawling is overrated! Wriggling around on the ground all dirty? I never crawled." I love her.
A phone call to my mom revealed that I never crawled either. And my Dad never crawled. And my sister did some sort of butt shuffle, but technically, she never crawled. There's a whole lot of not crawling going on and I'm here to say that it's O.K.

I have my own ideas about why he doesn't crawl and why most babies do. I haven't exactly been raising Joaquin the ways they recommend in the pediatricians office. He doesn't sleep in a crib like most babies. I carry him, a lot. I never bought a walking/ rolling play station or a little seat to help him sit. I don't let him cry it out, ever. So if I do things differently, won't he do things a little differently?
The coolest point I came across while googleing comes from Dr. Greene's website. He says that milestones are really just stereotypes. Bravo, Dr. Greene, as I am not a fan of stereotypes.
What is important is that he is an excited little boy who loves to move and dance and try to say new words beginning with the letter B. At least I don't have to worry about him crawling into goose poop.