Walking

It is funny, but you are conditioned to think that there is something momentous about your child's first steps -and understandably so. What they don't tell you, however, is that she won't just get up from a sitting position one day and wander across the room to pick up her cuddly. It all happens so naturally that, truth be told, paying as much attention as I was, I just sort of, well, missed it.

Not missed it completely as in I come home from work one day and Juno walks up to give me a kiss, but missed it in the sense that you watch so intently for something, try and determine exactly when the first steps take place, distinguish from all the other developmental stages where she is merely standing, or experimenting with shifting her balance, moving around the room holding on to fixtures, that you dissect and discard such a range of movements, refine your definition of what exactly it is 'to walk' that finally one day -in the face of all the evidence- you are forced to say, well hey: now she is walking. And she is. I will put some video up on miromiro.com in the coming days.

Her confidence is building day-by-day and she continues to experiment. Once she has successfully completed a particular manoeuvre she will repeat it ad nauseum, getting the full range of movement down. Getting on and off the sofa, or down from the bed are part of that repertoire now, as she expands the circle of chaos around her... But there is that moment, when she completes the sequence and turns to you, her face radiant with delight at her accomplishment and the desire to share that joy with you, and you just burst with love, and pride, and the childish thrill of it all.

Walking? I'm floating.