And She's Off!

Clara is walking! Finally at 14 months, despite reluctance, she is taking steps, four to five at a time, and pushing herself up to standing as well. She seems thrilled by her newfound mobility, but she is also still quite cautious, choosing to crawl unless urged to walk by mama or daddy.

We have brought up a toy walker from the basement and Clara has been happily using it to get around the house. The toy has caused quite a few arguments between all three girls, as they all seem to want to use it. We've tried to explain to Lena and Maia that they know how to walk already, and that Clara needs the walker, but they don't really understand. So there's been plenty of screaming and crying and pulling and pushing and tugging, all caused by this toy walker. But it's so fun to see Clara cruising around with it that we've decided to keep it upstairs, and play referee instead.

A few weeks later....

We had to take the walker away. Clara was depending on it to move around instead of walking on her own and the toy was causing too many fights for us to manage. Since then Clara has continued to walk more and more, although really only when urged to. She can now walk across the room, taking 10, 15, and 20 steps at a time. If she falls she generally continues crawling, rather than getting herself back up again, but this too is changing fast. She knows how to get herself back up, she just chooses to crawl instead. It's really only a matter of time.

A "Big Girl Bed" For Lena

Lena made an important transition this week from sleeping in a crib, to sleeping in a "big girl bed"!

After several days of insisting she no longer wanted to sleep in a crib, Lena finally decided, she'd had enough, and climbed out! Not without falling of course with a big thud to the floor. As she had never in three years tried to climb out of her crib, we knew she meant business, and promptly took off the front of her crib to make it into what we call, and she believes, is a "big girl bed".

The pictures below do a pretty excellent job of capturing the exciting moment when Lena walked into her bedroom and climbed in for the first time into her very own bed. She was thrilled to be free, although we've been very clear that if she doesn't stay in her bed we will have to take it away. Just the thought of being back in her crib makes her shiver and she's only gotten out twice this week on her own. She has also fallen out a couple of times in her sleep, but that doesn't count.