1, 2, 3 ... Look at Me!

Timehop on Facebook reminded us yesterday that exactly a year ago Teddy was walking 7 to 8 steps independently, without prompting. This was a huge milestone for him, yet I cannot believe it's been such a short time that he's been walking. He walks like a natural (drunk). He can maneuver turns, corners and stops before he walks into doors and walls ... most of the time. He's able to transition to different surfaces much of the time and walks across grass like a pro (football player going for the tackle). It just amazes me how much progress he's made in this one area alone in a year.

One year ago: This boy is walking 7-8 steps across a room, unbribed by us to walk, he decides to do it all on his own!!!! He is even taking slight pauses in the walk.

Yet another reminder of his progress occurred this weekend. We were walking into a store, with Dave and I on either side of Teddy holding his hands because parking lots have a lot of distractions. We counted 1, 2, 3 and then swung Teddy up in the air by his arms and landed him back on his feet. This was the first time we've ever done that, not because we never walk holding his hands but because he wouldn't have had the balance and ability to transition back to walking from flying. I think we may have created a monster now that he knows how fun it is. Maybe he'll learn how to count 1, 2, 3 from this new workout for us ...

He reached two other mini-milestones this weekend. He climbed the rock climbing wall of our playground set, which is set at an angle with rock climbing holds. Then he safely sat down and went down the slide. He's done parts of this process before and possibly even the entire process, but this was his first time flying solo without a hovering helicopter parent right there to catch him (although I was debating how fast I could fly across the yard from our garden to the playground).

The other milestone was that we removed the baby gate at the top of our basement stairs. Now, mind you, this isn't because we're completely confident in Teddy's ability to safely navigate stairs. In fact, Dave is terrified Teddy is going to try walking up or down and hurt himself ... or that Teddy will simply walk right down the stairs without realizing there's stairs there. But, we decided this was the safest route to minimize ER visits since Teddy has been attempting to scale the baby gate to go over it. He reached the point where he could get one foot hooked on top, so we removed the gate before he flipped himself over the gate and down the stairs. I'm optimistic this will help him become more aware of his surroundings that he won't just wander off the top of the stairs and I'm comfortable with him practicing some stairs walking instead of wiggling on his butt ... but I'll let you know whether the stairs or Teddy win. I'm pretty sure it will only take one ER trip for stitches before we install a half door that will buy us another year or two before Teddy figures out how to scale that.

I've said it before and will probably say it many more times, but these little things are such big things for Teddy and for us. They make my heart happy (when it starts beating again after he scares the daylights out of me).