Walking the walk (for realsies!)

Pretty much ever since Baby B was 9 or 10 months old and started using the walk ‘n ride at daycare, everyone has been saying to us, “Oh, she’s going to be walking so soon!” We were very excited for this milestone, as it’s a big one, but weeks and then months passed and still nothing. I knew she was still well within the range of normal for this milestone, so I tried not to think about it too much, but mostly it was just frustrating to hear everyone else saying how soon it would be and then come up empty week after week. She became good at walking while holding onto just one of our hands, but she never became brave enough to try it on her own. I’ve said for a while that when she took her first steps, she was going to pretty much take off instead of it being just one or two wobbly steps.

I was pretty much right!

This evening after dinner, we were playing with Baby B on the floor in the living room before it was time for bed. She showed some signs of wanting to stand on her own, which she really hadn’t done all that much, so we let her do that and didn’t really expect her to take off–but she did! She walked about five or six steps back and forth between me and The Husband countless times, diving into our arms excitedly at the end of each turn. After a while, we stood up and decided to see how far she’d walk if one of us wasn’t right in front of her, and one time she took 8 steps, and another time she took 10 steps, pausing at times to maintain her balance before carefully proceeding further.

We made our way to the bedroom so we could get her dressed for bed, and the walking thing was so exciting that The Husband and I plopped down in the floor, about 4 feet from each other, and had her walk between us again. This time she really surprised us because she left my arms, starting walking toward The Husband, then pivoted 180 degrees so that she came right back to me, slowly, but without losing her balance.

I was able to take a short video of her second set of steps (the first caught us by surprise, so I didn’t have my camera on, though thankfully it was nearby), so I’ll be posting that tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday. (The video is only about 9 or 10 seconds because at the time, she would only walk toward me, so it was hard to film her while also having my arms ready to catch her hug bomb. But I got it all the same. )