Onward and slightly upward

Well, it looks like we have finally emerged, again in fits and starts, from the month of hell. We're back to the usual level of unbelievably tired and overwhelmed.

Hooray!

Which explains my inability to muster the energy to post anything here. It took something rather stupendous to rouse me from this slumber, and Lupito was kind enough to deliver.

In spite of the fact that he has been taking steps for quite a while now, he hasn't really been 'walking'. It was more of a lunging kind of thing, where he'd eye some bit of furniture or wall or person or object which he figured he could hang on to and lunge towards it, taking as many as four or five steps in the process. It resembles walking in that it involves taking steps in order to propel himself forwards, but I have not been ready to actually call it 'walking'.

Then, last night, he actually started walking. Full on bipedal ambulation. Moving up past 10 steps is one thing, but adding the ability to start and stop without the aid of something to hold on to as well as throwing in a couple of turns for good measure and style points has lead me to admit it.

Let the record show that he officially started walking on Jan 25, 2009.

I, for one, am glad he took his time. When he started crawling at five months, the situation looked dire. I privately fretted that he might be walking before he turned 9 months old. Thankfully, he was content to crawl in a way that Ruby never was. In the end, he started crawling a full two months earlier than she did, yet it appears that she actually walked before he did. I can't find confirmation of when she actually started, but there is an old picture on the blog for which I wrote this caption, "Mommy and baby doing what baby loves best right now - walking with a helping hand (yes, she can do it alone, but can't achieve the desired speeds that way..." that is timestamped by the camera Sept 14, 2006. That would put her 2 days older in the picture than he was yesterday.