First Steps

Friday morning, I woke up thinking that Ella would take her first steps over the long weekend. A few hours later, Grandpop was sitting in my kitchen with Ella standing in front of him, holding one of his fingers. She took a step and let go of his finger, then proceeded to take four more steps across the open floor before she fell on her hands and knees. I was holding my breath and gesturing wildly to get Dave’s attention so that I wouldn’t scare her and he wouldn’t miss it. I’m so very thankful that she decided to do it while I was home.

She didn’t take any more steps until late Saturday afternoon, but she did practice standing without holding on. A lot. She even drank from her cup without holding on to anything. Saturday evening she took about six steps across Grandmother’s living room. Sunday, she practiced walking all day long. She would take several steps and fall, then get up and go again. I had to make her get out of the bath tub last night because she kept trying to walk around in it. By bedtime, she was walking across the living room, even turning to go a different direction. She was so obsessed that I had to make her go to bed and it took a while to wind her down. I think she’ll be primarily walking by the end of this week. I could just sit and watch her practice all day. It never got old yesterday, and I really didn’t want to leave for work this morning.

We had a very busy weekend full of birthday parties, BBQs, and fireworks. She had a blast, but she was exhausted. Friday night she asked to go to bed just as we were serving dinner at Grandma’s birthday party. She actually passed up bites of my food, and pointed to her bedroom. Saturday she played with her cousins all afternoon and ate ribs and potatoes, and then we went to watch fireworks. She fell asleep on the way home and actually slept until 9 Sunday morning. She’s usually my alarm clock on the weekends, but I got up before her, moved her to her crib, and she kept on sleeping. Weird.

She continues to amaze me as she grows and changes.