It has been over two months since Nick took his first unstable steps. Since then he still wanted to walk all over (with our help) and now and then he would again take an unstable step or two. We had gotten him a push walker for his birthday, but all he’ll really do with it is sit on it and play with the toys. We knew this walking stage wouldn’t last forever, and I have been doing my best to enjoy it while it lasted, but we were constantly wondered when the end would be.
Around Mother’s Day Nick’s walking started to change. Around that time he started getting a better handle of his balance. He started walking while holding on to us with only one hand instead of two. In fact he even got to the point where be would push our second hand away if we offered it to him. Things really took a drastic change last Wednesday though.
For the last few weeks Jason and I have spent time every evening letting Nick walk back and forth between us. Usually we have to hold him in some way until he was almost to the other person and then we’d let him go so he could take his unstable steps. We would often give him the chance to walk more by himself, and he had been showing some balance improvement, but he’d usually just tip over, so we had to always be ready to catch him. On Wednesday night though when Jason let Nick go he kept walking to me. We were all so surprised. Even Nick was shocked by what he was doing. His mouth formed a big “O” and his eyes got really wide. It was so cute. By the time we were done for the night Nick was able to walk back and forth between us taking six to eight fairly steady steps at a time.
On Thursday I had to make a quick trip to my doctor’s office and I decided to take Nick with me. Well, due to strange circumstances it turned out to be a long wait to get in, so Nick and I spent a lot of time walking around. At many points we had the waiting space to ourselves. You could tell Nick was starting to get the courage to walk because from time to time he’d let go of my hand. I decided to see what he could do, so while we were walking I let go of his hand, and he kept walking until he got to a chair. I couldn’t believe it! He ended up walking back and forth across the waiting room about five or six times. The only thing that stopped him was that he tripped over his feet, fell forward, and got really bad carpet burn. Once he calmed down I did make him walk again because he was acting scared to and I didn’t want that.
It is amazing how his walking has changed in just a few days. He can walk many steps to reach a person now, and he has really good control. He can even stop when he gets to the person and stand there instead of just falling into them. You can even see the difference in his walking when he’s holding on to someone. He’s holding on now only for safety and no longer for stability. His only problem is that he has always liked to walk really fast (practically a run) and now he’s trying to do that by himself. Needles to say that’s not really working yet, but I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s running away from me.
My only problem? I now need to safety proof the house! I don’t even have any baby gates yet. I’ve been spoiled by the fact that at 13 months Nick pretty much stays where I leave him. Luckily for me Nick still doesn’t pull himself up, so he won’t just start walking somewhere without me knowing about it. I need to get on the safety proofing ASAP though.
I’m so proud of my little guy!
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I love seeing him walk. We should have a good trip this Fall.