He Walks!

I have a confession. I was starting to wonder if Milo had given up on the concept of walking. He would take a few steps, then drop down to his preferred mode of transportation, and crawl faster than I thought was humanly possible to his destination. He never insisted on Andrew or me holding his hands to walk through the house, and seemed content to crawl wherever he needed to go. Then, a few days ago, he became more interested… and since this morning, I don’t think I have seen him crawl more than a few inches. It’s like he woke up this morning and said, “Yep. Today’s the day that I’m going to start walking from here on out. Go ahead. Try to stop me.”

I guess this is also when I tell you about the newfound freedom that walking brings. Everything seems new again, seen from a different angle, to be explored from above. Milo has also renewed his obsession with climbing, belly buttons, and books. He can now bring me the books he desires to read, and does so often.

Another interesting tidbit… sleeping seems to have taken a backseat again, but not for the expected reasons. It seems that Milo has found a sense of urgency to “tell” me something, and he will cry and scream until he can do just that. For instance, he will cry and cry, and if I go into his room and pick him up, he will take his little hand, turn my face to the side, and point to my ear until I tell him what it is. The same goes for my nose, mouth, eyes, or belly button. Or he will point to the fan and sign “fan” over and over again, then be ready to go back to sleep. Or he will point to his favorite book, Llama Llama Red Pajama, urgently. This is no surprise. He has his favorites. Milo insists that we read the llama book at every naptime, before bedtime (sometimes twice) and now when he wakes up. Today Milo climbed the stairs, walked into his room, ignoring all the toys on the floor, and went over to his llama book, poking it three times hard, and looked at me with such frustration I almost laughed. He really, really wanted to read that darn book! It is a good book, at least. But the main fun of all of this is that Milo is starting to express his preferences and opinions. He is a real person, with real ideas and plans!

And I love the little person he is becoming.