Of Taking New Steps

On January 15 Joey took his first two steps while he and I played in the living room.  A little more than a month later, we finally pulled out the video camera to capture our new little toddler.  He still has trouble making it more than the distance from one couch to the other on his own two feet, but he sure does love to try.

This act of becoming a walker has truly shown us how independent our little guy is.  While we spent weeks trying to encourage him - standing the little man up and holding out our hands to him - he constantly plopped down on his rear to begin his crawl - every time.  I finally decided he has his whole life to walk, so he might as well take advantage of the hands and knees approach as long as his knees are still padded enough to handle it.  Because goodness knows that goes away all too quickly.

As with all things in life, it was at the moment of our surrender that he finally decided it was his time to shine.  Within days he began to toddle the four steps between Mommy and Daddy (as captured in the below video) all on his own and only days after that he now regularly pushes himself to his own two feet, taking the halting steps in whichever direction he chooses.  True, he still often gets over excited and quickly loses balance, and crawling his still his preferred method of transport, but let it be known our little guy can walk.

Which brings us to my big milestone - our youngest child can walk and I'm NOT currently incubating another.  Such a big step for us all!

(Note: My favorite thing about this video, other than the evidence of his newest ability, is how encouraging his wonderful siblings are. These kids are my greatest gift.)


1,000 Steps:
1101. What once was a curse now is a blessing
1102. A sign I was made for this
1103. First (and second and third) steps
1104. Giving away and still having plenty to give
1105. Quiet times with kids
1106. Her enjoying the music
1107. A little boy offering to help (and doing it well)
1108. Fat flakes in our hair as we get groceries
1109. Grocery shopping with one kid at a time