#6 took his first steps last week. Three steps from the coffee table to his dad, and the next morning, two steps from the couch to me. (Why is it that the last three children have all taken their first steps when I'm not here?)
Since then...he just can't be bothered. We wait until he's standing, holding on to some piece of furniture, then we sit down and call to him to walk to us. He smiles. He laughs. He drops down on all fours and crawls on over to us. He's just not interested in walking. He can do it, now why should he?
He is utterly without motivation to walk. He gets carried around everywhere, and because he's not too heavy nobody minds. He's not a fast crawler, but he has nowhere to go in a hurry. He's more interested in climbing to the top of our furniture and bookshelves than in strolling across the room.
He'll be one in two weeks, and while I'll miss his babyhood, I'm ready to move onto toddlerhood. I'm ready for his hand in mine as we walk down the path by the creek and to watch his chubby legs churn as he runs to his dad. He doesn't want to. Who ever decided that these children could make such decisions or themselves?
For the next few days, I'll be following him around like a loon, trying to catch his baby steps on camera..immortalized to amuse me in my old age. I'll keep you posted on his progress. His Oma says "No birthday cake for boys who don't walk" is a German tradition. She's threatened him already, twice. He just laughs at her. Don't tell #6, but she threatens them all, and even the non-walkers get cake.
3 comments:
It took me 14 months to walk, not because I couldn't, but because I didn't want to. Crawling worked just fine, so why bother learning to walk? Years later I would spend more energy getting out of work than the actual work using the same principle.
Some babies seem to wait until they can really get it right. My son didn't walk until 13 and a half months, but when he did he was walking all over the house within two days. Before then he either crawled or walked holding onto the furniture. He's still a perfectionist as an adult. His sister lunge across the floor falling forwards approach. Later when she was older and tackling a particular job she looked at the result and commented to my mother-in-law that it was good enough. She's learned more about getting things done well since then (4-H judging helped with that), but she's still has a bit of daring in her.
They all walk eventually, as I'm sure you know.
I'm always so excited (and impatient) for them to walk - and then somehow they transition so quickly that I kind of forget that they used to crawl. It's sort of like trying to catch the first leaf of the spring - somehow you look around, and poof, spring is here!
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