First Time Walking

Patrick was upset when his mother went outside without him (cooking on the grill). I set Patrick down on his feet the floor in the sun-room. He was grasping my fingers as he normally did. I pulled by fingers free and lightly supported his elbows. He started walking forward ... out of my hands and simply kept on going. Baby steps (those words will never mean the same thing to me again), but walking.

I quickly got ahead of him and got Jen's to come back to the door and she got to see about half of the first walk ... to her, at the door waiting for him! Fifteen feet on the first walk ... awesome!

He walked from the swing to his Mama ... diving into her arms after about ten feet!

Inside a few minutes later, he crossed the living room lengthwise for about 30 feet of walking ... up onto the rug in the middle of the room.

AND, later he walked about eight feet toward his Papap, falling for the first time in any of his efforts.

I think at some level, he's been ready to walk ... he watched the other children and developed a plan of action and waited until he was ready to go. This was the night.

What an amazing night this has been. I can't say how amazed and proud I am ... he is truly an awesome child.

Sometime in Patrick's first few months in day-care, I asked about his first time doing things ... talking, crawling, walking ... and was told that even if a child did have a first event at the school, they don't tell the parents. They want Mom and Dad to have that experience to themselves. What a cool policy.

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Terror or Anger

Jennifer and I woke about twenty minutes ago to Patrick crying ... nothing unusual. I asked her to get him since I have to start getting ready for work in about three hours (yes, I have to work on a Saturday). Where things became unusual was the loud, sustained crash, and Patrick's cries rising to a hefty scream. Being the concerned parent that I am ... with visions of his changing table collapsed on top of him, I rushed to their aid. "What was that?" I cried. Jennifer, weakly replied, "I fell down the stairs." With Patrick screaming at the top of his lungs, I think I actually asked her to repeat what she said. I found my wife sitting, with her legs out and my son in her arms, at the bottom of the stairs. Asking if she and Patrick were OK was mixed into confused questioning about what happened. Somehow, her feet went out from under her (we suspect a couple of the leaves that Patrick likes to play with were on the steps). While my real concern was i...

Getting Involved

This is the second night in a row that we were able to spend time and Grandma and Papap's ... Patrick enjoys it so much! We even had a rousing rendition of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" with all five of us involved ... yes, Patrick is pitching in now. He runs from person to person, giving a bit to each one of us ... there is never a dull moment. Tonight, he repeated a new activity from last night. Last night, it was getting everyone involved in chasing him around the house ... tonight, we had this activity, but what we saw was that he wanted to play different games and wanted certain people involved. This is when he went to each person that needed to be involved and grabbed a finger, pulling them along. He even checked every now and then to make sure they were still following. Such an amazing child ... knows how to ensure that we sleep well.

The Evolution of Walking

It started with an attempt to crawl that looked more like something the military spent weeks getting me to perfect (the "low crawl") ... Patrick got that down in a few minutes. After all the photos, videos, and calls to our grandparents, we marveled at how amazing our son was. Then, the crawl became something that involved all four limbs; quite a bump up from just his arms. It wasn't long before he was moving quick enough to get his fingers into the door as I was closing it. The primal scream of pain was unreal ... yet, all too real. The little man's finger was dented ... I still feel a bit guilty today and it has been months since the incident. Then, just as Patrick was getting the crawling down, he managed to pull himself into a standing position without any help. About that time, he took a nose dive off the bed into a popcorn bowl ... it was hard not to laugh as he cried in pain. He loved playing with a fire engine that he can sit on and in...

Fatherhood

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