Will Walk For Food

And he's off!...Well, kind of. He's definitely on his way!

I was 99.99% sure that August would walk before he was a year old. Then, when it looked like he was making even faster progress, Tyler and I jokingly bet each other about when specifically he would begin taking his first steps. Tyler bet that it would be sometime before August 1st, and I bet that it would be August 1st or after.

Then, he got his right foot crunched by the heavy bench at our kitchen table falling on it on July 1st. He had his first trip to the ER, as we watched it swell up and turn purple within a minute of the accident. We were scared that his foot was broken. I was freaked out, especially to have to watch my screaming, terrified 10 month old get held down while they did x-rays on his little foot. But, thankfully, he had no more than some bruising and swelling. By the end of the week, the whole thing was barely a blip on his radar.

So, he resumed his course, and now, it looks like Tyler won our little bet.

He isn't full on walking, yet, no. But there's just no turning back with him from here. He was walking using his Fisher Price walker for the last couple weeks, (and boy, can he move fast with that thing). Then he took his first few steps on his own over the weekend, and has tried a couple more each day. On Sunday, however, I could only get him to walk to me for Teddy Grahams, (this is totally my child). I should have known that food would be the key all along, though. The second this baby hears a bag being rustled, someone chewing, or even the fridge door opened, he's moving as fast as he can towards that sound. My fat baby loves to eat! (Joking, joking... still, watch this terrible quality video if you don't know what I'm referring to.)

He's wobbly, and he prefers to still do the drunken-looking-walk where he holds on to the wall as he goes, but he's gaining a little more confidence about stepping away from it if someone is holding out their arms - or food - to him. I'm amazed at how far he has come, especially this last month, so fast... And so early! He won't even be 11 months until Thursday. I'm very proud of my little dude.

Mostly, he likes to use his new skills to cause all kinds of trouble. It is amazing the whole new world of monkey business he has opened up all of a sudden. It doesn't seem like it would be all that much different from what he could get into when he learned to crawl, but it is.

Hopefully what is a wobbly couple of steps now will be a full on walk in time for his birthday. Once again, though, we'll just have to see... No rushing.