Today’s special report on the Haydie News Hour focuses on walking.
Hayden took his first steps December 21. Everyone said that the first steps were like a watershed: he’d be running around in no time.
Less of a watershed and more of a puddle, as it turned out. For the first few weeks, he almost never made an attempt to walk unless “prompted” (stood up a few feet away from another family member). Even then, he couldn’t take more than three or four steps at a time before it looked like he was overwhelmed with enthusiasm and bowled himself over.
By mid January, I was worried that we’d somehow pressured him into those first steps and he wasn’t really interested in walking. One Sunday afternoon, I was mulling over those very thoughts when I looked up to find Hayden had ventured away from the couch. He was standing on his own—and he’d taken a few steps to get there. Not only all by himself, but completely of his own volition.
By his birthday, he still wasn’t walking much, but consistently. I was still a little concerned (I am a mom, after all), so I planned on talking to his doctor on this past Friday.
Last week he started walking quite a bit more—probably about a third of the time that he spent moving was walking. But he had never stood up without holding on to someone or something. I put it on my list of things to talk to the doctor about.
The doctor got to see him walk—a diaper-clad Hayden toddled perfectly across the examining room from Ryan to the doctor (yeah, still no stranger anxiety). The doctor said that if he hadn’t started standing on his own by 15 or 18 months, we would look into it.
Maybe I should have voiced my concerns earlier. That afternoon, Hayden was sitting in the middle of the living room and I was languishing on the couch (still very sick at this point). Next thing I knew, he was standing. I kind of caught it: enough to know that he’d just stood up entirely on his own.
Fastforward to this week. Now he’s walking just about half the time. Today we went in to Ryan’s work for a while. Hayden walked all around. Everyone had to say hi. One girl at work was so interesting that he waved, squealed, planted one foot on the ground and stood up like he did it all the time.
What do you know? They keep growing.
In other news, last night, Hayden slept from 7:30 PM straight to 6:25 AM (and even then, we didn’t get out of bed). But that’s probably another report on the Haydie News Hour.