Last time I talked about the unspecific nature of many milestones and the difficulty of assigning a specific time to their various occurrences. I can say with certainty that our son has taken his first “steps” recently and I’m proud to announce it here. He’d been standing up alone and walking with the aid of nearby furniture for over a month. He’s also been using the “training wheels” of walking with a wagon of sorts. All of this prep work has prepared him to begin actually walking on his own with confidence. It has started. Ten steps is certainly not the “first step” but it is perhaps one way to look at it. He is now capable in walking. He’s also confident enough to try to walk.
To say that my wife and I have both excitement and fear concerning his new talent would be an accurate statement. While this marks yet another milestone in his life it also marks more potential dangers. While he becomes more self-sufficient he also becomes more of a potential danger to himself. In some ways that’s not true. In some ways his environment becomes more dangerous in direct relation to his ability to interact with that environment. He will more quickly get around to things without his parents’ knowledge. He will more quickly stand and move and pull and fall and crash and land. He’ll be having fun throughout though.
For now we will focus on the positive. We will focus on our little boy growing up and walking like the big boy he is becoming every day. We will rejoice in his new talent, encourage his every success, and console him in any failures (or, more likely, his walking practice). The process is all about training wheels, but it seems that he’s taken them off as far as walking is concerned. Another milestone has been reached. Congratulations, Son!