Walk This Way
To those of us with very small children, the milestone of walking is something that is very highly anticipated. You just can’t wait for those little legs to start toddling across the floor. My son Aiden took his first steps about a month before his first birthday. He took 3 steps toward me, and then later that night took 4 steps toward his Daddy. We were so excited! It’s finally happening, we thought; he’s going to start walking!
Only, he didn’t.
He took those few steps and then went back to crawling with even more speed and gusto than he had previously shown, which is saying something. He had two gears when it came to crawling – leisurely and full speed ahead. If he was just crawling around with no particular destination he went slowly, taking the time to examine every speck of dirt and who knows what that he came across. But when he was on a mission (say, headed for the open bathroom door or maybe a cup of water that someone had left within his reach), he would put his head down, rock back and forth a couple of times and then take off with enough speed to rival a 747 down the runway. It was truly amazing to watch. I had no idea that such a small person could be capable of such speed! So it’s no wonder that those few slow, wobbly steps did not exactly inspire him to uprightness. Why should he plod along (falling down most of the time) on 2 legs when he could get where he was going twice as fast on all fours? This little boy didn’t have time for that – he was way too busy exploring the world to deal with annoying things like learning to walk.
But Mommy and Daddy kept at it. We kept standing him up and pushing him to walk, over and over and over again, until finally he started to take the hint. He was almost 13 months old by this time, and it seemed like he was taking FOREVER to get the hang of it. Slowly but surely he started walking more and more, getting more confident by the day. Eventually the day came when he started initiating steps by himself, walking from the couch to his toy box, and things like that. It was so amazing to see my baby boy turn into a little person by doing something as simple as walking – something we grown-ups sometimes take for granted.
Now he has to walk everywhere. By himself. It was much faster when I just carried him, but noooo, I had to teach him to walk. It forces us to go slowly, so that he can keep up. I think that sometimes we forget to go slow. We are in such a hurry to get wherever we are going that we don’t take the time to really appreciate what it’s all about. It’s not about working your whole life to gain something you can’t take with you. It’s not about the job, the house, the clothes or the rat race. It’s about watching your son walk across the living room floor all by himself. We taught him something he needs, and he taught us something in return -
Sometimes you have to take baby steps.
