TMI Tuesday: Standing

I still remember the look of both pride and sheer joy on our son’s face when he sat up by himself for the first time. I will always remember the moment when he finally figured out the coordination and started crawling. I continue to look forward to seeing him scurry from the playroom to greet me when I get home after work tugging on my pant leg until I pick him up. And, right now, I hold my breath a little bit every time he pulls himself onto his feet and sways as his legs continue to shake.

That is what he is focusing on now. He has figured out how to stand, how to pull himself up onto his feet, but he isn’t the most stable baby at this point. He is getting better but he also isn’t about to let go of his support anytime soon. And he hasn’t quite mastered the getting up to his feet part yet either. He actually gets pretty frustrated when it takes too many tries to get vertical. The same impatience that was on display when we was still figuring out how to crawl.

It is amazing how much he is able to do already and how much he has changed during the past couple of months. As he tries to do more his personality seems to develop more and more and, at the same time, he we can tell that he never wants to settle for what he is able to do right at that moment… he always wants to do more or at least do what he is working on better. Meanwhile, my wife and I are simply encouraging him and telling him “good job” as he stands there with his wobbly legs. That is obviously not good enough for him.

Actually, what we are seeing him start to do now that he has been standing for a couple of weeks is that he is starting to almost walk in place. It obviously isn’t very smooth and can sometimes cause him to lose his balance but you can tell that he is wanting to really be mobile… even as fast as he has become on all fours, crawling just isn’t good enough. We can tell already that he is going to be a handful as he gets older and is able to do more and more. This could get really interesting really soon… glad we finally put up baby gates last weekend!