Learning to walk

Colin will be 15 months old on February 25th. Average age for a child to walk is 15 months. Colin was no where near hitting this milestone. He wants to walk so badly. He stands by himself for a good 10-15 seconds and then it's like his brain catches up and he realizes he's standing. He freaks out a bit and then falls. Before he falls, his face lights up with excitement and he looks around for anyone watching. He really feeds off of mine and Mark's excitement so we always clap to encourage him and hold out our hands or a toy. But to no avail. He just won't take that first step. Recently I've noticed him getting frustrated with himself and that hurts this mama's heart.

This past weekend, Mark and I had a 3 day weekend thanks to President's Day. You've heard of the 3 day plan for potty training, right? We took this same approach with walking. We started Saturday morning by putting his favorite toys up on the table so he'd have to stand to reach them. Then we moved them around the table and over to other furniture to basically bait him to walk. That back fired. He just crawled to the other furniture and stood up on that. Smart kid ;)

We moved on to his toy walker. He LOVED it! Proof below!

I swear on Saturday night he made about 30 trips through the living room and around the kitchen. He laughed the whole time. It was awesome to watch! I definitely shed some tears because I was just so dang proud of him! After a few rounds, he gained so much confidence. If he tripped he got right back up and kept going!

Sunday was kind of a bad day. His teeth were bothering him and he just wasn't in the mood for walking. We tried a few time and he did make a few rounds but he got super mad whenever he would run in to something or trip. We didn't push him to try more, we let him make his own decision and if he wanted to stop, he stopped.

Today was so much better! He was cruising on everything while I was making breakfast and imagine my surprise when I turned around to see him whiz by with his walker! He would stop along the way and hold out his hand so I held out mine, letting him know I was there and I would help him. He needed my reassurance. We worked with his walker most of the afternoon and by dinner time, he had learned how to turn it on his own in order to keep going.

While he didn't take his first step, I think he made great progress! We'll keep working on it and practicing as much as possible. He'll walk when he is good and ready :)