The Boy’s been a walkin’ fool for the past two weeks.
He started cruising a few months ago, holding onto the couch or a chair or whatever and going as far as those improvised safety rails would allow him to travel. Sometimes we’d push chairs and a footstool and large toys fairly close to each other so he could indeed range a pretty long way.
After a few weeks of that, he began to take real, honest-to-goodness baby steps, up to a half-dozen at a time. As he’s still never crawled, this was pretty exciting stuff. Top Management and I would sit on the floor, six feet apart and he’d just bop back and forth between the two of us, chortling with glee. It was great.
But then he stopped. Just gave it up. It was the oddest thing. Sometimes we could sort of trick him into it again, but even that was a chore. He just didn’t want to do it anymore. He’d still cruise, but he didn’t want to walk by himself. And he’d never, ever voluntarily let go and try for something. If he was holding onto the ottoman and the couch was four inches out of his reach, he wouldn’t let go and take the step required to grab the couch. He’d just howl. It was most odd.
But as long as he *could* reach something, he was happy. It got the point where he’d be able to go through pretty much the entire downstairs, just holding onto chairs or the wall or the toy chest or whatever. It might take him fifteen minutes to get to the train room from the living room by going all along the outside walls, but he did it.
And then two weeks ago he started walking again. There was very little build-up. One day he just started letting go of things and walking. And when he went, he went.
Within days he was walking ten feet with little problem. Then he started doing 180s, walking five or ten feet forward and spinning around flawlessly, effortlessly, and heading back.
He’d spend half an hour up in the blue room, walking from one sister to another, laughing hysterically. At night, rather than go to sleep at his usual time, he’d be up late, walking all over the downstairs, bopping from one room to another.
There was no rhyme nor reason, no method to his madness. He’d be heading straight for the wedgits, his favorite toys. But inches away he’d suddenly turn and veer off for the train tracks. He’d maybe pick one up and then he’d be gone again, this time headed for the kitchen cabinets, which he’d open and close once or twice and then he’d be off somewhere else.
This would go on for hours sometimes. He’d walk towards one of us but rarely made it all the way before he’d spin and go off in another direction. Just aimless wandering.
Except it wasn’t, of course. By the time his sisters were half his age they’d been able to crawl. So if they were unhappy or bored of being in a given location, they’d crawl off to a new one. If there was a toy they wanted, they’d crawl to get it. If they wanted Mom—and when did any of them ever not?—they’d crawl to get her.
He’d never been able to. He was always trapped, unable to motorvate anywhere he wanted whenever he wanted. And now that he could go somewhere, he wants to and he will. It doesn't matter where, really. It's the power to go, the ability to change his location that's the important thing. He's in control.
And the joy and pride and satisfaction he takes in his newfound capability to travel is awe-inspiring. It's not the destination that matters—that's nice, sometimes, but really, it's merely secondary, or maybe tertiary. No, it's the trip itself, the getting from Point A to Point B: that's the vital part of this equation.
When Top Management and I were in college together, we’d frequently just hop in the car and go. It didn’t so much matter where; we often tried to find new roads we’d never taken before but we weren’t really headed anywhere—we never stopped except for gasoline or to get something to drink. It was the going that mattered, not the getting there.
Travelling with small kids can make you forget how wonderful and fulfilling those experiences can be in and of themselves. The Boy's found that out for himself now, and reminded the rest of us in the process.
Goosebumps. Goosebumps! I just saw this. Had NOT read it when I wrote my piece this morning. You and I, we are one mind, baby.
(Which explains why we both have half a brain.)
Posted by: Lissa | Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 11:56 AM