Walking

It seems like, with most kids, the skill of walking is fairly quick in progression of stages: pull yourself up, walk with help and while holding onto things, a few steps by yourself, more steps…and they’re off! Not so Emry.

Emry has been pulling herself up and walking with help since the beginning of July. It was another five or six weeks before she’d let go and stand by herself, then take a tentative step or two. Now it is the end of October and she’s finally letting go and walking by herself. Over the past few days, walking has outdistanced crawling in her modes of transportation.

It’s actually quite fun to watch. She’s not one of those kids who is at all effected by peer pressure. I watched her sit on top of a very wide bridge shaped slide in the small children’s play area at the mall for 15 minutes while kids of every shape, size and age climbed around her to slide. She didn’t care. She was has happy as can be watching them, exchanging a few words now and then if she felt like it. I couldn’t coax her down the slide for all the fruit snacks in the world (her favorite). Eventually, it took Ed and I to push and pull her gently down the slide (which did not impress her at all).

A few months ago, before the older kids moved to the next class, every kid in her Sunday School class was walking all around her. It didn’t bother her. I don’t think she would have cared if the babies now in her class started walking before she did. Her cousin Jay ran circles around her last week in Tennessee, the little girl a couple of doors down runs about and we’ve been to more than one playground where kids younger (but larger) dash around happily. She wouldn’t budge. Crawling has been more than sufficient for 6 months now – who needs to walk?

But now she is walking. As soon as we got home from Tennessee, she took off. It was as if she was extremely tired of being in a car seat for hours on end and she was now home in her safe little world. She could walk about as she pleased. Which is what she does most of the day now. Back and forth. Back and forth. From the living room to the kitchen and back again – sometimes with a stop for something in her room or the dining area. We’ve said we ought to find a baby pedometer and strap it to her to see how many steps she takes for she’s surely wearing a path in our carpet. And she’s as happy as can be.