walking

after months of being on the cusp of true bipedal motion, ava has finally taken the plunge. she took her first voluntary step into thin air a couple of weeks ago, tottering towards me from the turtle and yesterday she finally completed the transition.

with freedom however, comes risk, and sometimes pain. It only took 12 hours or so of walking before ava took her first painful spill. strangely, this was not during one of her high jinks adventures in the playground. instead, she rug-burned her chin and split her bottom lip in two places toddling across the soft carpet in her room.

watch ava toddle around at the playground, as well as practicing her second word. see another classic early walking clip here

twelve to fifteen months is a rough patch in baby evolution, because it's the time when conventional wisdom dictates that parents should start taking away many of their favorite little things. this is probably much harder on the parents than the kids because you are supposed to get rid of just about every little trick you've developed to keep them quiet for five minutes. for example, no, ava doesn't really need to lounge in her bouncy chair to drink her bottle, but gosh, wasn't it nice when she was all nice and strapped firmly into place, so she didn't combine bottle drinking with walking practice?

speaking of bottles, the biggest challenge (for everyone as far as i can tell) is transitioning to the sippy cup. a couple of days after ava's first birthday I tried to make her quit the bottle cold turkey. when she got up in the morning, instead of a bottle i handed her the dreaded sippy cup. she screamed hysterically, took the sippy cup and threw it across the room. the scene ended with ava strapped into her bouncy chair, "watching television" while periodically screaming as i dribbled the milk into her mouth sip by painful sip. i opted to abandon this plan in favor of a more graduated approach to the issue. currently, we've reached a bizarre standoff in which she will drink juice from the cup, but not, god forbid, milk.

grandma is visiting again, which means that it's time for ava to reach another milestone. unsurprisingly, grandma coaxed ava into her first solo steps. so far, only grandma seems to have the knack for "launching" ava so that she takes a few steps on her own before falling over.

The more sustainable method of Ava transportation is the (also new) one-handed assist.

i tried to inspire ava to stand up on her own by plonking her down in a patch of decidedly prickly grass. her reaction followed my prediction, and she gave it herculean effort, but she never quite made it to her feet.

unbelievably, it is very sunny and warm in san francisco today - even in the sunset. usually in san francisco, the 4th of July is more of a punishment than a celebration. typically you get to attend a chilly, overcast barbecue, followed by watching the fireworks barely peak over the fog, while you shiver in gale force winds on the top of a hill. for once it wasn't like that. we celebrated the nice weather with a trip to the park with daddy.

these days, ava's world is all about walking. all she wants to do is walk, walk, walk, with a few breaks here and there to sit down and examine some fascinating piece of dirt. of course, she can't quite walk on her own yet, so all this walking is a lot of work for those of us that hold the little hands. i keep hoping that the more she practices, the faster she'll be able to do it on her own.