When we on holiday in France in August Molly talk a couple of speculative and uncontrolled steps. This wasn’t proper walking just us adults standing her up on her feet and encouraging her to lunge forward just to get the idea. The following weekend however I was proud to receive an excited phone call to say that she had done it – she was up on her two feet and walking between the furniture. I didn’t see that because the next day I was off to Greece and didn’t get to see her again for over three weeks.
Two weeks ago she came to stay with me for a couple of days and by then crawling was long forgotten and walking was her preferred means of getting about. And this was proper walking, not just making it from one chair to the next but actually getting to her feet and going anywhere she pleased. It had that side to side wobble that babies have as they first walk from the hip and just to be safe it felt necessary to be close by in case there was a tumble or two.
Two more weeks have passed and she has been to stay with me again and the progress has astonished me. She has her first pair of shoes, she is walking with her knees instead of her hips, she is confident enough to pick up the pace and try and run and she has even been kicking a ball about. After waiting nine months for her to move she is now completely mobile and no where is safe without being Molly proofed.
Spotting the big changes are easy and as well as walking she is increasing her vocabulary, she has learnt how to blow kisses and now and again she will attempt to feed herself. I have to say however that I am not so keen on the feeding herself development however because this can be a bit messy and has increased the cleaning materials budget.
As well as the big milestones however there are a number of subtle changes that are not so obvious but are just as important. She knows who people are and she can recognise faces and even names, she is aware of her environment and after two weeks away from my house she knew there was a new hall carpet and front door mat and she spent time getting used to the feel of the new surface but most impressive of all is that she is beginning to show that she can reason and make judgements about what she should and shouldn’t do.
When she first arrived this week I put the electric fire on by using the switches at the side that are discreetly placed out of sight. She watched me do it and then I could see her mentally calculating whether she should touch or not. Since becoming mobile there have been a lot of ‘no’s’ and ‘don’t touch’, she knows what this means and I am sure that she guessed that the electric fire would fall into that category so she looked at me, I said nothing, and she decided to wait a while before investigating. I waited and sure enough after ten minutes or so she moved in on the switches but before reaching out she turned to check, I said ‘no’, she was expecting it and she left well alone.
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