"One small step"

It's official: on July 1st, 2011, Evan took his first steps.  I felt like the opening score from 2001: A Space Odyssey should have been playing in the background.  I doubt seriously that Neil Armstrong's mother felt as proud in '69 (though I'm guessing she felt similarly in '31 or so when baby Neil took his inaugural steps). 
 

We were at the Lee District Splash Park with our "Alexandria Moms and Tots" group when the historic event occurred.  I think the rough pavement at the Splash Park might have motivated these first steps, because Evan's knees were looking pretty raw.  I haven't been forcing the walking issue at all; he is 13 months old now, so we have gotten a lot of annoying "Is he walking yet?"s, but I had a feeling he wouldn't be crawling in kindergarten so I wasn't going to fret.  The fact that the knee discomfort was a likely motivator reminds me, though, of a story my husband told me a while back.  My husband has a colleague (a doctor) whose son wasn't walking when he hit the 18 month mark (which is the end of the "normal" range for walking to begin).  This doctor decided on some tough love.  She dressed her son in shorts and shoes and put him under a pine tree in her yard.  After being stabbed briefly in his sweet dimpled knees with the cruel pine needles, lo and behold, the child could walk!  I wonder how much longer it would have taken Evan had a little pain not been involved.  According to Brenda Nixon, author of The Birth to Five Book, late or early walking is not an indicator of the child's intelligence, but rather a matter of their "temperament and opportunity."  Perhaps I should have been giving him the "opportunity" to bloody his knees more often?  Have I been coddling him in some way?   

As exciting as the moment was, I have to admit that I'm a little sad too.  My baby is now a toddler.  These were the first steps (literally) toward his independence from me.  Soon he will struggle to escape my grasp, argue with my decisions, and duck from my kisses.  I've seen it happen to every other mom of a toddler; I have to accept that this is where we're headed, and that this is good.  This is progress. 

In the meantime, though, while he is still pretty unsteady on his feet, I'm going to catch him and smother him with kisses.

Funny how these milestone moments can be bittersweet.