I am still a little bit hopped up on brain excitement chemicals; my hands a definitely less steady than usual and I am finding it difficult to concentrate.
Despite that I am writing this down now while it is still fresh in my mind. Before I forget what it really felt like.
Today my wee darlin' Marila took her first unassisted steps. To put it simply, she walked.
I know this is something that almost everyone, barring illness, or injury, eventually figures out how to do. Its easy, just one foot in front of the other, even the most intellectually challenged of our species figure it out eventually, what is the big deal, eh?
Well the big deal is, it was my wee girl, and it was her FIRST steps! Her first steps! For me, and I suspect for all decent mums and dads anywhere in the world, seeing your child take her first steps is a wonderful, ecstatic, jump for joy experience.
And it is one less thing to worry about. Phew, she can walk, she has teeth. Now only talking to go and we have a reasonably normal child on our hands.
It is by a considerably large margin the most exciting thing that has happened to me in the 9 months and 10 days since she was born and possibly only second to that in my whole life.
Well, it definitely makes the top five anyway. I remember being pretty excited the day I got my BMX.
This is how all went down.
She was holding on to the back of the sofa while I rummaged about in her mum's red bag looking for a toy or something to occupy her and when I turned around she was half-way across the sofa towards me, and here is the important part, she wasn't holding on to anything!
My fragile, sleep deprived brain nearly exploded with excitement before crashing down into the dungeons of doubt. Did I really just see what I thought I saw?
I hastily picked her up, smothered her with love and kisses and placed her back at her starting point for another go.
With only a little waggling of her, oddly appropriate, toy caterpillar she let go of the sofa and took three quick, tottering steps towards me before falling over on her face. Don't worry she didn't hurt herself. We moved two sofas to face each other so that she can play in the middle without falling off anywhere but the ends. Gives us a little more chance of grabbing her before she executes one of her graceful swan dives into the unforgiving tile floor.
I supremely relieved that all those bumps on the head don't seem to have stunted her intellectual development, nor have they made her afraid of trying dangerous new things like letting go with her hands and walking. Did I mention she walked today? Don't seem to be able to think about anything else.
Her mum was in the bathroom for the first five or possibly six steps of her daughters life but not to worry. When she came back into the room, the wee darlin' pulled herself erect and promptly demonstrated her new skills for her mother, adding another three steps to her lifetime tally.
Of course her mum wanted to see it again, perhaps harbouring the same doubts as I had just banished and we managed to promt her, with more toy waggling, into another tentative two steps, which is, incidentally, how we captured the above photograph.
After that, the star of the show seemed to get bored of the whole thing and went back to crawling. She wasn't nearly as excited about the whole thing as her mum and dad were.
In fact you might say, if you were inclined to use bad puns, that she took it all in her stride.
