Our little darlin’ has taken her first steps.
Emma, our 10-month-old, apparently has decided that crawling
isn’t cutting it anymore.
Our little darlin’ has taken her first steps.
Emma, our 10-month-old, apparently has decided that crawling isn’t cutting it anymore.
Oh, it’s not like she woke up this morning and had a quick jog around the block before her morning coffee. Rather, one day late last week she stood up on shaky legs and took a small step forward. Which represented a giant step for me.
You see, I wasn’t quite ready for her to start walking. Heck, I wasn’t even prepared for her to start crawling. But what’s a Mom to do? I can’t exactly tether the little angel to her playpen. Can I?
So, my husband, Chris, busted out our child-proof house kit. It doesn’t consist of much; a few latches that we’re pinning our hopes on will keep her prying hands out of the kitchen cupboards.
Emma is quite the little explorer. It wasn’t a big deal when she would sit on her blanket and play with her toys and look cute. That was before she was mobile. Before she realized that her arms and legs could maneuver her across the floor and help her get into all kinds of trouble.
Fun trouble. Like our dog Lucy’s biscuits and mountains of catalogs and every single crumb and miniscule speck of dirt on the floor. Oh that was fun.
The problem with Emma crawling is that her eyes are so much closer to the ground than mine. She can see things and pop them in her mouth faster than I can sprint across the room and pull them from her clutches.
I’m glad that phase has nearly ended. All that vacuuming and sprinting was exhausting. So, then she moved onto standing, which was followed by cruising. For those of you who don’t know what cruising is – I didn’t until a month ago – it’s when a kid walks around the furniture while grasping onto it.
And then finally one day she did it. She let go of the couch and took her first step and promptly fell on her bottom. Since that first attempt she’s gotten plenty of practice falling properly while improving her balance and coordination.
She is so determined, too. She’ll take one step and fall down. A split second later, she’s standing, trying to beat her personal best, which at the moment is six steps. She even turned all the way around yesterday!
Of course, we haven’t captured any of this on video. When Chris whipped out the camera earlier this week, we had to record for nearly an hour before she could eek out one step. Oh well.
But it was worth it when we played the footage on the TV for her. Emma looked at the screen with her mouth agape. Then her whole face smiled as she stood up and started clapping. If she could’ve whistled she would have.
Chris and I figure that by Thanksgiving our little munchkin will be running around the house, whooping it up and chomping on the drumstick. Before we know it we’ll have to start a kids table during the holidays.
I could see the years unfolding before us already: the golf lessons and gymnastics meets, the play practices and soccer games.
OK, now I’m getting ahead of myself. But I want to be prepared. I don’t think I can handle another milestone like this one without some warning. Like her first birthday.
Now, that’s only two months away. I should get planning on that right this second. The invitations. The sugary cake. The games.
Wait a minute. I think I’m getting a little ahead of myself. What 1-year-old will notice whether we play pin the tail on Lucy or whether the cake frosting is butter cream or chocolate?
I bet if I just take the latches off the cupboard doors and give her free rein over the catalogs and dog biscuits, she’ll have much more fun.
