She Walks! and 10 Months old Today!

No pictures or videos yet, just the delight that is parenting. Emiline has been on the verge of walking for a few weeks now, she'll stand up and take a step and then sit down and crawl. Over the weekend, she took a couple of steps and today, as she turns 10 months old, she took six steps as we coaxed her to walk between me and Eric and even Jane. Every time she did it, cheer like mad, even Jane, and it was such a fun, delight some moment!

I know I felt this with Jane and I'm fairly sure I expressed it somewhere, but it's all afresh with me today with Emiline: the joy of parenting. The things I got really excited about (other than boys) in my single life were also satisfying: being accepted into a grad program in Wales, chosen to sing one of my songs in the songwriter's showcase, mastering a good climb, in the last step of revision of an essay when it was all really coming together, anytime I got to teach, being introduced to a real brain-burner of an idea or perspective. But the joy I find in parenting, the depth of the satisfaction, the sparkling delight of excitement, is on a completely different level and a wider, broader, more sustaining feeling. I was full of it as Emiline toddled back and forth between us.

I'll have to go back and check the videos, but it seems that Emiline's first steps are very different then Jane's, and it goes back to Emiline's momentum--once she starts moving she just goes for it! She waited a bit longer til she was steady, then took big, fast steps and swung from side to side (a bit like a drunk), her balance in question until she got to her destination. I am excited to see where her enthusiasm, and her walking, take her!