She walks

Steps in the right direction

Emme took her first steps today.  She's been teetering for days, on the brink, but today we saw definitive steps.  Since her last follow-up appointment with the plastic surgeon, we've been able to make the wrap on her foot very thin.  I can get a regular sock over it and even a shoe on, though it doesn't fit very well.  Since then, she's been standing much better.  In the last day, I've seen her stand up in the middle of the floor without pulling up on anything, so I knew she was really close.  Because she's not totally steady on her feet yet, I think we'll have a few weeks of a few steps and then falls before she's really up and walking well, but it's just amazing to see this tiny little girl up on her feet.  I can tell she's excited, too, and ready to take off running!

We've hit a few more milestones recently, too.  She's started signing.  She definitely knows "more," kind of signs for "all done," and it starting to learn "food."  She says "mama" and "dada," usually with meaning, and has a version of "all done" that I hear now and then.  She can drink from a sippy cup, though it's pretty messy.  We'll be phasing out the bottle by the end of the week, offering it for a few more days just until she gets completely used to the cup.  She's also started drinking cow's milk now, and she seems to like it as much if not more than my break milk.  Emme eats "school lunch" now -- they supplement some baby food if she doesn't get enough, and we're basically doing the same thing at home.  She eats whole wheat crackers, goldfish, Cheerios, Cheetos, pieces of cheese, peas, carrots, green beans, small pieces of bread.  Tonight she had some of the white chicken chili that I made for dinner -- jalapeño and all!  It's a very messy process, letting little people learn to feed themselves, but it certainly makes for an easier mealtime.  Besides, Emme has always been so independent, she much prefer to feed herself.

I have only a few more days of time with this "baby" as she will be one, and a true toddler, on Friday.  With the semester starting tomorrow, it's hard not to think back to a year ago, about to start my classes and still pregnant, wondering when the little one would finally come.  I can't help but be nostalgic for those new baby days, but I wouldn't go back if I could -- this past year with her has been so much fun.  She is such a happy little girl, full of energy and spunk, and her presence in our family has brought out new sides of Wes and Oliver.  I can only imagine what more the next year will bring with her in our lives.

Walker-ing

Emme is now even more mobile.  Tonight I watched her, for the first time, walk across the living room with the toy walker we bought when Oliver was 13 months (and still not walking independently!).  She isn't fast, and it'll still be weeks before she's a true toddler, but she does a great job getting her feet going and pushing the walker on her own.  

The walking man walks

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Oliver finally started walking. He took his first few steps on Sunday, November 22. I had taken his walking toy with us to my parents' house, and he spent Saturday pushing it up and down their steep driveway and cruising around the house. On Sunday, we had some definitive steps taken independent of the walker, and it was witnessed by multiple parties. His walking evolved over the course of the week, from a few steps between a person and a piece of furniture to a long haul from the pantry into the living room (for which my sister baited him with a goldfish cracker).

Wes and I had actually seen the first moves towards this at home the previous week. We had seen him stand independently, even standing up in the middle of the floor and, in some cases, hoisting large toys (like his big dump truck) while doing so. I guess he felt emboldened by this and decided to finally try out walking.

He's still pretty mixed in how he moves around the house. We try as much as possible to put him down in the middle of the floor so he'll walk some, and if he loses his balance he just stands back up and keeps going. He'll go into the living room in the morning after breakfast and get his walker down off the window seat. I've yet to get to see this happen. I've usually not noticed until I see him cruising around with the walking toy, and since I've yet to hear a crash, that must mean it's not too hard for him to do. He likes to try the stairs standing up when there are supports on the hand rail to hold on to. (He's currently trying to push the walker with one hand and carry the dump truck with the other.) He still crawls some, crabs some, occasionally walks on his knees. His walking is definitely slow and stiff-legged -- but it's there.

A walker

While at Laura's, I finally caved and bought Oliver a walking toy. I'd been hesitant to do so. In part because Wes and I hate buying toys. The kid plays with anything, so we'd rather not spend money on something he doesn't really care about having. Plus, I kept hoping he'd just get going on his own and spare me the indignity of buying something he was only going to really use for two or three weeks. And a lot of these walking toys are fifty dollars are more.

But on a trip to Wal-Mart, Laura and I spotted this one that collapses into a little riding scooter and stands up into a walking toy. It was on sale and was absent the bells and whistles (and noisemakers) that normally go along with these things. We got it home, Laura got it assembled, and he was off in no time. He walked all over Laura's house for about an hour before we had to leave to head home. He even tried to push it up the stairs (where he'd spent almost all his energy prior to the walking toy -- I think I owe Laura new carpet on her stairs). He walked around for another hour or more at my parents' house when we got there. And he's been non-stop with the thing in our house. He uses the walking toy to get around the house, then crawls when he needs to inspect something more closely.

It's obvious he's making strides (pun intended) towards standing independently and walking. He can practically pick up the toy to move in the direction he wants to go. He's just not brave enough quite yet to let go and suffer the consequences of landing on his butt. It's funny to see him decide to go someone in the house, then look for his walker to get him there.

My hope is that this will give him the courage to eventually let go and try it out on his own. I try pretty often to get him steady on his feet and then let go so he'll stand on his own, but he usually gets nervous and sits down. I noticed yesterday that they have the exact same toy at daycare, and his teachers commented that they've seen his improvement, too.

It will, ultimately, be another toy he outgrows, but I have to say that for miles it's getting, it was worth the $20.

Baby needs a new pair of shoes

Right after Oliver's first day at his new daycare, we had to go shopping for a jacket (it's cooled off here) and a pair of shoes. Both were for the playground. The kids play outside a lot at this daycare (even today, when it rained all afternoon and they were essentially playing in mud), and so they require all kids, even those not walking, to have rubber-bottomed shoes. The only shoes we've owned up to this point are the soft-bottom Robeez-type shoes (except the cheap ones from Target). So off we went to the mall, where I knew things would be more expensive but the one place I knew I could find both things and someone to help figure out the size for his feet. Twenty minutes and a chunk of change later, Oliver got his first pair of shoes. I've tried to tell myself that he only needs good shoes for while he's learning to walk and then we can go cheap once he's up and around really well. But honestly, it's helpful to have someone help with the sizing. I've got no idea -- I've even bought shoes too small for myself! She did tell me that kids tend to grow out of a pair of shoes in about 3 months, which isn't comforting. If he ends up with Wes-size feet, he's got a lot of shoe sizes still to go.