I can walk (kinda)

Here are our sons first steps (he took is actual first steps on January 11, this is the first time I have been able to catch it on camera). He is 10 1/2 months in this video I took today; before I started filming he had already made 2 steps and in the video he takes 6 solo steps then one last unassisted step while he reaches for the chair to start cruising instead.



I would like to add this is one of the first times he has walked not holding on to a toy, usually he is distracted and does not realize what he is doing this time he was fully aware that he was walking to mama.

Learning to Walk

Christophe's always been very focused on standing, cruising and walking, and started to stand and cruise at a pretty early age.  There was a period there where I was starting to wonder if he was going to crawl and roll at all, or move straight into walking, and do so earlier than most books implied was likely.  

As it turns out, going from the simplest cruising to real walking is a lot more of a transition than we initially imagined.  As time went on, Christophe got increasingly stable with his standing and cruising, learned to transition across all sorts of gaps and learned to squat and stand without support.  In the meantime, he also perfected rolling and crawling, to the extent that he'll often drop down to crawl longer distances that, once upon a time, he would have cruised.

Fairly early on, Christophe would occasionally take a step or two without support, to do something like cross a gap that was just a little too far for his reach, although even that was hesistant and rare.  In the last month or so, that kind of gap-crossing has become more common, although he's still shown very few signs of generalized walking.

I try and encourage him gently -- call him to me across a space he can't cruise, that sort of thing. So far, that mostly results in either him not crossing the gap, or choosing to crawl the distance. 

Yesterday afternoon, Christophe stood without support, not very near any potential cruise target, holding the (non-functional) remote control we'd given him to play with.  As had become habit, I backed up a little to give him some room and called him over, and he began to walk without support towards me.  

I wasn't prepared for how exciting and emotional that would be, particularly since he's come so far.  Between the rush of emotion in seeing him walk, and trying to praise him, encourage him, and call Pierrette to see all at once, I'm not entirely sure of the specifics, but I'd say he walked about six or seven steps before stopping and then probably either squatting or falling relatively gently to his bottom.

Later that evening, I was able to persuade him to take a few more steps, but he hasn't shown any signs (so far) of breaking into regular walking.  I'm sure that someday soon, Pierrette will be calling me to tell me that he has walked an even longer stretch, and I'll be jealous that I'm stuck at work.

Exciting times.  We'll try and catch his early steps on video soon.

Christophe has gone mobile

It's official our son is mobile, he can crawl, cruise, crawl to an object and pull himself to standing and don't forget the scariest situation of them all crawl to him push toy pull himself up and take off. This is quit an accomplishment for him as he had been cruising since mid october (7 1/2 months) but did not show any interest in crawling. Were we ever happy when he decided to to pull himself forward on all 4; however now that he has mastered this new skill along with his other mobility skills life is a bit hectic and scary.

First we had to baby proof; I moved all our household items that were dangerous to upper shelves, we bolted all our tall bookcases to the wall (thank you dad for helping out with this); we bought gates and various baby proofing hardware. However I don't think we went overboard, I want Christophe to learn and understand the house; to know that if he collides with things it might hurt (trust me, we moved everything that could seriously injure him). I did not want to create a padded house for him.

The gates we ordered from Safety Super Store. We selected the Safeway gate by Kidco for a few reasons, good safety ratings, stylish and most important in our case it fit our extra narrow doorways. We ended up installing 2 of them one at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor and the other at the top of the basement stairs. I was concerned that our cats would not be able get pass the gates, all of them except for Cain have seemed to have figured it out. Able does not even slow down she just walks through the gate like it's not there.

I also read up on baby safety on the internet one article that I came across that I particularly liked was "How to accident-proof your kids" on the CNN website.

To celebrate Christophe new found freedom here is a little video of him cruising with the wall:

News in the life of Christophe

Christophe discovered this week if he holds on to our hands and puts one foot in front of the other he can go forward. Then he discovered that he no longer needs to wait for the cats to come a see him he can go to them (as long as mama or papa are cooperating).

Christophe also successfully peed in his face, yes in his face. He now holds up his legs for us during diaper changes and uses his hands on his knees to help out. Well mid diaper change he started to pee but did not think that releasing his legs would be wise. We took a bath after that event.

Christophe is rolling but shy about it. Every-time I leave the room I find him flipped over however he wont preform when I am playing with him. At night we stopped using his blocks when we put him in his crib, so every morning or at 2am we find him in these weird positions - lying with his head at the foot of the bed; lying sideways, lying sideways at the foot of the crib...

Christophe also discovered that splash pads are like large tubs and 100 times better. This is another location where he enjoys walking (my back is killing me from holding his hands all the time)