She's been pulling up and cruising around since 7 months or so, but I didn't think she'd take off this soon. Wait. Let me be clear. She definitely has not taken off by any stretch of the word. It's really more like a lunge and her sweet little chubby feet pitter patter behind.
Literally the day before it happened, she started standing unaided for about 20 seconds at a time and I thought, "It looks like she's just going to take off any day now!"I didn't really believe that she would, it just looked like she was stable enough to do it.
Fast forward to the next day after all the standing. I was putting laundry away, and Elle was standing beside my dresser undoing all my nice folding out of the bottom drawer that I was putting things into. (This is my life, people.) I squatted down to play with her to distract her (and because she's way more fun than putting away laundry...) and she took a step towards me! I thought that I surely imagined it. Later that evening, interested to see if she would do it again, I held my arms out, she got REAL excited and then took 3 big girl steps towards me! It was WONDERFUL!
I definitely teared up and screamed so loud that I think I scared her from doing it again for a while. (I think we're past that now.) I caught a slight glimpse of what it's like to watch your child really excel at something. I was (am) SO proud of her! Up until that moment, it's been little milestones. These are FOR SURE exciting and rewarding, but watching her figure out something like walking made me sympathize a little bit more with crazy parents who push their kids to ridiculous limits at things like piano, basketball and UIL Calculator. (The latter, of which, I took part in and won a few ribbons for. My parents were not crazy people. I genuinely liked it. You can laugh.) It's wonderful to watch your child succeed. WONDERFUL! I'm thankful that Jesus is giving me and will continue to give me perspective on my role in helping her develop her gifts so that her worldly success is neither my identity nor my goal, but I get it.
Crazy, screaming volleyball mom, I get you.
It's not right, but I get you.
And just to prove to you that my 9 1/2 month old took steps, here's a video some friends took while babysitting for us so we could have a night out. (Thanks again, Justin and Tara!) And, Justin really loves Elle, despite his negative reinforcement. :)
happy walking little walker!
