She Wants To Walk!

Chloe's napping right now. She definitely earned her nap today. Just a little while ago she crawled up to me as I was standing and pulled up on my legs. Then she somehow conveyed to me that she wanted my hands. I'm not sure how I understood what she wanted but next thing I knew I was walking backwards with her walking toward me. We went around the living room and dining room about five times! I kept trying to stop and give her a break but she insisted we keep going. She was wearing her sneakers and on her tippy toes for a lot of it but toward the end she was putting her whole foot down almost 50% of the time. This was ALL Chloe. I wasn't pushing her or showing her what to do or even encouraging her to do more. She was completely self-motivated and self-teaching. I LOVED IT!

Raising Chloe has been SOOOO different from raising Solana. I joke sometimes that "you'd never guess we've done this before." It's like everything is new! The truth is that everything really is new. Solana developed almost exactly on track with all those recommended time tables. I would check the list of things she should be doing at 1 month, 6 months, 12 months, 24 months. And I'd always say to myself, "Yep. Yep. She's doing that. Yes. Yes." It was so easy! I never worried about her falling behind. It was a total non-issue. And I never tried really hard to teach her anything (well, except potty training - that was a pain). She knew what she needed to do and just sort of...did it. Sure, we put her in tummy time, cheered her on as she tried to crawl and walk, taught her signing and words. But it was all so natural and easy.

I feel like we've struggled and worked so hard for every single little thing with Chloe and we've had to push and push her to do anything. To see her self-motivate such a big thing, like an attempt at walking, is like a special little gift. Totally made my day.