First Steps

I interrupt your regularly scheduled program for an important baby update...One small step for baby means one giant step towards toddlerhood.

My baby has reached a number of milestones on days so easy to remember that I forget to write them down. She started crawling on April 29, the day Prince William and Kate Middleton got married. She pulled herself up just a few days later on May 1st. She started to cruise around furniture and take big steps while holding onto something on July 25, stood unassisted from the middle of the room on August 1st and took her first two steps on her own on August 2nd, which happens to be her grandpa’s birthday. 

I missed her first steps. I was at the end of the road talking to a neighbor and my baby took her first steps for her grandparents and dad. I almost cried, not because she is becoming a walker, but because I missed the first steps. Of course she refused to take any other steps yesterday. I had to wait until this morning. She looked at me, stood up and took one big step! She promptly fell on her little butt and clapped her hands.

How did she go from a stationary newborn to a cruiser? She’s starting to toddle, that means I have a toddler on my hands! 

The first year goes by so quickly, I see friends with their newborns and my heart aches a little. Newborns are so sweet and tiny. They are so precious and innocent. My midwife said something soon after I gave birth that sums it up, “If every world leader had to start each day holding a newborn, we’d have a much nicer world.” It’s so true, but then again, having a one year old, who comes barreling at you full force to give you a sloppy kiss, who claps and waves as you come up the driveway, who smiles and reaches up for you from their crib, well, I wouldn’t give that up for the world.