Going walkabout

You may recall the Cruisin' video (http://pinkletsplace.blogspot.com/2008/02/cruisin.html) from waaay back in February, and perhaps you're wondering, hey, does that kid walk yet?

Truth be told, she was quite resistant to the idea. So much so, in fact, that if you tried to take her hands and get her to walk with you, her usual response would be to hoist BOTH feet off the ground and protest loudly. Almost as if she suspected that, if she learned to walk, the "carry me EVERYWHERE" gravy train might come to an end.

Eventually, nanny Norma decided enough was enough. I think the other nannies were giving her a hard time ("What, that baby is more than a year old and STILL not walking? Tsk!"). And thus, the hammer was brought down. Norma explained to me that "the Indians" teach their their babies to walk by looping a blanket around them as a sort of handle, and letting them get the feel of what walking is like. Well, Lily was resistant at first, but as you can see she warmed up to it:

Still, no serious attempts at walking on her own.

Well, a bit more time passed and before you know it, we were jetting off to New York to visit Po Po and Gung Gung (our first east coast trip! We'll blog more on that separately). Would being transported to a new environment inspire her to greater achievement? We stepped outside onto Po Po and Gung Gung's driveway the next day to test the theory:

Hm. Perhaps not quite. Oh, well, that's OK, Lily, we'll just go to the tulip festival downtown. But wait, what's this?

Yep, a scant 1 day later, Lily decides to rock out the one-finger-assisted toddle. Which just goes to show that showing off for the grandparents is much more motivational than doing something your parents want.

Later that week, we all (Lily, mama, dada, Po Po, and Gung Gung) all relocated to Aunty Cathy's place outside Boston. Lily must have been waiting to maximize her audience, because a couple days later, on May 9th, THIS happened:

Yayy, Lily! We were ecstatic, both that she chose a moment where a lot of the family could witness her take her first unassisted steps, and also that we were lucky enough to capture it on video! Although in retrospect, the latter is not that impressive, as we pretty much constantly video her on the off chance she does something cute.

Well, following that performance, she seemed to relapse slightly...she would occasionally attempt a step or two, but mostly seemed to prefer the finger assist. But she would walk that way MUCH more readily. Here you see her walking with mama at Drumlin Farm in Massachusetts.

And with dada at the beach:

(also noteworthy in that Lily discovers her love of water is somewhat dependent on the temperature of the water in question)

And at home, she developed other assisted walking methods:

But in general, she seemed reticent to go for the full-on independent walk again. That is, until just this past Memorial Day weekend, when we went up to Nono and Nana's for Mallory's birthday party:

Oooof! Collision! Everyone's OK!

And well, you know, once you get her started it's hard to stop:

So, we're still not TOTALLY steady on our feet, but to answer the question posed at the beginning of this blog, yes, that kid does walk yet. :-)

Happy Birthday, cousin Mallory

Cousin Mallory's birthday was May 8th! Hey, how old is Mallory?