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.