The next "step"?

[mightymulhern]

For quite some time now, Syndey has been pulling herself into a standing position when you hold her hands. For awhile it seemed that standing herself up was about all she wanted to do (other than jumping), and she seemed to reap great personal satisfaction from doing it. She really likes standing in front of her toy piano and either playing it with one hand or her chin. (Yes... when she's too wobbly, she actually plays it with her chin while holding on with 2 hands)

In the last couple of days, we've taken the nest "step" so to speak. Sydney will now walk from place to place if you hold her hands. She'll walk across the kitchen, across the living room, across the play mat. While still wobbly, she's taking the steps herself and all we're providing is balance and a quick rescue if she takes a bad step. We had tried this occasionally in the last few weeks, but she wasn't really getting it and rarely tried to take a step at all. She sort of took off with it in Friday.

Some random thoughts to put it in perspective:

• Sydney doesn't always take sensible sized steps. It's usually little ones but sometimes she'll stick one leg way out there.
• Sydney doesn't look down and is oblivious to any obstacles in her path. Thus she'll step on anything in her way.
• Sydney walks on her toes and the balls of her feet.
• Sydney sometimes forgets to take steps when we're doing this on the play mat and ends up hanging with her body at a 45 degree angle.
• Sydney can only pull herself up from a sitting position on short objects. Everything in our living room is a little too tall so she isn't strong enough to pull it off. Along those lines Sydney seems to like to climb. It's a shame we don't have some carpeted stairs. I'll be she could climb up them without more than a spotter.
• Sydney often attempts to stand on her own from a sitting position and is actually doing the right things with her legs to accomplish it. She's just not quite strong enough and has no where near the coordination to pull it off without crashing.
• Sydney sometimes forgets that she can't stand up on her own and lets go. She can however stand up briefly while holding onto something with one hand.

Meanwhile on the crawling front, Sydney's attempts to stand up and to reach for things well outside her reach generally end up with her on her tummy. As she makes the transition from a sitting position, she actually has herself up on two hands and one knee. Then she swings the other leg into position, the knees go opposite directions, and she ends up on her tummy. At that point she starts scooting backwards as mentioned in earlier posts.

So it's a toss up whether this baby will crawl or walk on her own first. She could crawl if she put the motions she already knows how to do together, but she's not really making progress there. I think she would much prefer to have you walk her over to wherever she wants to go.

[Mom&DadMulhern]

Wow! Sounds like Sydney is really making a lot of progress just since visiting here. Before long, she will be crawling everywhere (better find a baby gate for your steps). She is really cute. Don't wish for her to walk too soon. Soon after walking comes running. You'll never catch her then! Sorry. Just remembering someone else who will remain nameless.

Love,
Mom

[mightymulhern]

Yeah we're already in discussions regarding how we're going to contain her.

Today I watched her grab the top of her piano and pull. She made it up to one knee before falling back on her butt. I actually thought she was going to make it this time. She could conceivably be able to pull herself up on everything in another week. Based on how wobbly she is, I don't think she'll be walking that fast but it could happen within this next month.

One problem Meghan and I have discussed is "she's so short". You can't exactly walk down the sidewalk with Sydney walking beside you holding her hand. If it happens, it's going to be a very funny sight.

We really can't believe how fast she's growing both physically and developmentally. It seems like she's physically too small to be doing some of this, but she is undeterred. All she wants to do is stand and walk.

In other recent news, we've ditched the Dr. Brown's bottles in favor of ones with fewer parts to clean. Sydney burps herself now and isn't spitting up everywhere so we figured the air was a non-issue. ...and so far it has been. We also keep working on the sippy cup and trying to get her to drink milk out of a little shot glass sized regular cup. Both are iffy.

Still no discernible words. Meghan thinks she heard "up" a few times, but we're not sure.

Today we had a successful 2-Nap day. We've been trying to get Sydney to transition down from 3 naps to 2, but it's been rough. Basically Sydney is just too exhausted to do it most days and crashes taking a 3rd short cat nap. Today though she pulled it off without too much fuss. She may have been awake for a full 6 hours. Normally that's unheard of.