Traveling Girl

My prediction that Molly would be walking by her birthday was correct – we have a little walking girl in the house! Molly took her first “official” steps today (and then proceeded to take a lot more!). It’s so funny to watch her, because she looks like she’s concentrating really hard as she picks up her little fat feet and carefully puts them back down. After a few steps she gets really excited and dives the rest of the way into your arms, squealing with glee. She has such good balance already that I think she’ll advance to toddling along on her own a lot quicker than Max did. She’s been walking behind some of Max’s push cars for weeks now – Max was never able to walk with those cars because he had to lean on them too hard and they’d shoot out from under him. Of course, with Molly fast approaching a fully mobile state, Max is in for some trouble – if he thinks she’s a pain now … As an example, yesterday Max was sitting at the table, finishing his lunch. Molly, having already eaten her lunch, was crawling around on the floor. I heard Max say, “Uh oh! No, no, Molly!” and turned around to discover that Molly had crawled over to the table, pulled herself up on Max’s chair, reached up and grabbed his plate, and helped herself to a fistful of his cottage cheese. She was merrily shoveling cottage cheese in her mouth (and all over her clothes and all over the floor), while Max looked on in horror.

These aren't her very first steps, but they're among her very first steps (the photos are absolutely awful, but it's the content rather than the composition that counts for these!):







I have confirmed that Molly is in the process of cutting at least three of her four first-year molars (I’m guessing number four is right there too, but I can’t see or feel that one yet). I suppose that might explain her recent horrible sleep habits (see, the teeth WERE to blame this time). She’s actually slept a lot better recently – she slept through the night once last week and last night she only got up twice. I know that doesn’t sound impressive, but we’ve had some nights lately where she’s been up 6 or 7 times. As soon as the molars settle down a bit, I’m going to try another ten-day “Get Your Baby to Sleep Through the Night” plan. And, since my follow through has previously been rather poor, I’m going to write daily blog entries to chronicle my progress. I’m hoping I might be better about sticking to the plan if I have to hold myself accountable to all of you. So, stay tuned for another thrilling chapter of the Sleep Wars. ;)