Celebrate!! I Think...

Ever since the day Emerson started crawling, I looked forward to posting the exciting news that he was officially walking. I don't know why experience hasn't taught me better by now, but I assumed that once he got a few practice sessions under his belt, he would take off on his own at last. And when that happened -ta da!! he's walking!!! I even told Robbie I wanted to throw a mass party for the occassion and invite all the friends and family who've listened to us worry and gripe about it for months on end.

However, Emerson had a different plan in mind. The night before I left to visit Utah, Robbie decided to give an old trick another try. For a while we could get him to stand for a couple seconds before throwing himself into our arms. Pretty soon he caught on and instead went limp in anticipation, so we eventually gave up trying.

Anyway, Robbie tried it again and to our amazement, he took a couple of steps! We tried more and more, getting a little further apart each time until he was walking the length of the living room!

Robbie and I both said we didn't care if he took his first steps at grandma and grandpa's house when we weren't around - we just wanted him to learn. But after that exciting night, we were glad that he timed this momentous occassion so perfectly.

Since we've been in Utah, grandma and grandpa have worked diligently to take this initial success and make it official, but Emerson can out-stubborn the best of them. Some days he's willing to toddle between outstretched arms for several minutes (earning massive cheers and applause from his audience), other days he employs the totally limp or totally stiff technique along with screaming protests. One step forward, one step back...literally.

Tomorrow afternoon I leave for my week-long intensive class and Emerson will be staying with his grandparents here in Utah. They are determined that he'll practice his walking skills as long as it takes, but for the sake of their sanity I hope they don't work too hard!

Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I think about how hard we have to work to get him to hit every milestone and how many more milestones stretch out ahead of us. I'm trying to adopt the "who cares...he'll do it when he does it" approach, but that laid back attitude is hard to maintain when endless therapists and doctors question you weekly on his progress, what you as parents are doing or not doing, what he should be doing and what we need to do to make it happen. Every few months we get a stack of papers evaluating all his milestones and goals and then listing activities we need to do. It's very helpful to have, but also daunting when most days you're just trying to survive.

I wonder how many parents out there even know that holding three objects at one time is a major cognitive milestone much less know when their child reached this milestone? Their child just does it one day without fanfare or pushing and they blithely move on. Oi...sometimes ignorance truly is bliss!