Little Man's First Step!

My son took his first official intentional step last night and I was there to see it! Woo hoo!

This is especially cool because he did not learn how to crawl until about 1 month ago. Before that, he rolled his fat little body everywhere in complicated epicycle-like arcs until he 1) got to where he was going 2) got to someplace more interesting than was originally intended or 3) got stuck up against a piece of furniture. Because of this, his aunt and uncle used to lovingly call him "Homerball" after Homer Simpson's power in the Simpson's video game.

About a week after he learned how to crawl he learned to "cruise". For those of you that don't know, cruising is walking while holding onto objects for support. Most of us usually don't do this unless wintertime North Atlantic sea travel or binge drinking is involved.

Many of his adventures in cruising so far have been successful, but a few have been real face-busters. Fortunately, the type of mishap he goes through at least once a day (that would put me in the hospital eating through a tube and blinking in Morse code for my bedpan to be changed) does not do too much to deter him. After the requisite 30-second crying spell he's off again like a shot. You know, he might be a Highlander, because I have heard that they also are immune to injury from collapsing into an oak dresser jaw-first...

Over the past several days he has been letting go of things and just standing there. Usually it is unintentional - as though he is completely unaware that the act of grabbing remote control off the coffee table with both hands has resulted in him becoming a free-standing entity. As soon as he realizes what he is doing, however, he immediately collapses onto his bottom (geeks read: this is exactly how Arthur Dent manages to fly).

Well, last night he was leaning up against the couch and turned a little to face me. I said "C'mon, buddy, come to da-da". He let go, took a step, and stopped. He looked genuinely amazed at himself but he might just have been mimicking my amazement. Lacking a "Step 2" to his "Plan A", he went on to "Plan B" and sat down and crawled over to me. I am very proud!

So, to sum up: 6 or 7 months of rolling hither and yon, 1 month of crawling, 2 weeks of cruising, and now his first step. At this rate, I don't know what he will be doing a week from now, but I hope it doesn't involve line dancing.