A couple of weeks ago now, my son took his first steps. He took the completely opposite approach of his cousin who started walking at about the same time. She walked a little bit, walked a little bit more and promptly started running.
My son on the other hand, took a few steps, took a few more steps and, much like I seem to approach everything in life, decided that he had mastered it and was done with walking for life. He promptly sat down and started butt-scootching, a step he’d up until that point had skipped over all-together, having previously gone from rolling directly to crawling.
For days if not weeks, he didn’t walk by himself again. His seeming lack of desire to walk is somewhat shrouded in mystery as he absolutely insists on walking while holding your hand; going so far as to throw hissy fits when adults are unwilling to comply with his highness’ demands.
After months of sleeping in a crib beside our bed (or in our bed), he’s also finally got his own proper bed in his own room, something even I haven’t had in years. Unfortunately, his room tends to be a little bit warmer than ours, meaning that he woke up after a half hour and after being put to bed once again climbed out and was crawling around an hour later. My wife promptly went back to putting him in the crib.
Since his first steps, with week-long breaks, he has actually taken a few more steps by himself, usually when it’s least convenient, such as when we are about to leave or already running late (although I must confess I’ve also tried to use this to my advantage when my wife was dragging me somewhere I didn’t want to go to).
After one social occasion, we came home and my wife asked me if I could watch him while she ran to the washroom.
It wasn’t that late yet (around 9 p.m.) but certainly past his usual bedtime. I grabbed him a toy, laid down on the couch with him and fell half asleep before my wife made it back out of the washroom.
Meanwhile, he was bouncing up and down on top of me with the greatest joy in the world. As my wife put it on Facebook, #sendhelp.
