- Standing and eating an apple
Two days before we left to come back home to Vancouver for a visit, Maddy took her momentous first step! I was so excited and proud of her. That day and the next day, she continued to take a step on her own a few times throughout the day. The morning that we left, she took two steps. That was just over a week ago, and already the difference is staggering. She is walking all over the place now, much to the delight of all of her grandparents, aunts and uncles.
I guess it’s even better for her that she gets so much encouragement and positive reinforcement for every single step that she takes. It’s more praise than I can lavish on her by myself, and I think that it must make a difference in how confident she is and how motivated she is to try again and again. She still crawls around, but it’s probably a bit closer to 50/50 with walking and crawling now. What blows me away is how quickly she is progressing. She’ll turn one year old in just over a week and she’s already developed so many new skills.
When she first took those single steps, she was so wobbly and wasn’t sure how to balance on just one leg for long enough to take a second step. Now she is walking from the couch to the kitchen, from the coffee table to the bench at the front door, and everywhere in between. She’s starting to move pretty quickly and I can tell she wants to run. No doubt skating will be next 🙂 When she loses her balance and falls down, she’s very good about landing on her bum, then will often stand back up and try to walk again instead of just deciding to continue by crawling.
She has adopted an interesting pose while walking, though, and it really cracks me up. Madison seems to like holding her arms up when she walks around, whether she’s got them bent at the elbows so that her fists are at her shoulders, or straight up so that it looks like she’s cheering.
We’re cheering her on, too!
Mothering Madison 