One Small Step For Man . . .

One giant leap for Alex!!! We have news so historic that I (Keith) am actually getting on to contribute to the blog! After plenty of build-up, Alex has finally taken his first independent steps! We've managed to scientifically re-create it too, so it's definitely official. It's really an interesting sensation to watch your child walk for the first time because, on one side, there's been a lot leading up to it, to the extent that we've been able to see this moment coming for some time, it was just a question of when he would actually go ahead and decide to try. In that sense, it's not really a surprise. But on the flip side, even though we knew it was coming soon, once it finally happened, it was still surprising, and really exciting!!

So, officially, his first steps occurred out in the yard when we were working on the garden. But it was today after church that we got him walking back and forth between the two of us. The real question now is how soon it will be before it's no longer isolated incidents and he's simply walking everywhere.

Theoretically, from what we tend to hear, we should be terrified now. Now we'll have to chase him everywhere, and now he can get into everything. But we're kind of welcoming it with open arms. The truth is, there's nothing more really that he can get into that he couldn't before. He's been crawling up to tables and pulling himself up on them for months now, so being able to walk won't change anything there. I guess if we had some sort of off-limits pinata hanging in the middle of the room, 3 feet above the ground that he wasn't able to reach when he was crawling but could now that he's walking, maybe then we would be worred. And so far as chasing him goes--well, he crawls really fast. We already chase him. If anything, he'll go slower (for a while) when he's walking. The only real changes will be that he'll fall down a lot more (which is kind of terrifying) and we won't have to be led around the apartment by our fingers (which is kind of a big relief).

So that's my take on walking. Bring it on.