Waiting for your child to walk is a little bit like waiting for water to boil. Or waiting for your entree at a busy restaurant. They aren’t going to walk if you are just waiting for them to walk.  That is especially true when you are always armed with an iPhone, and start shooting video at every move that could be confused as walking!

I don’t really remember when Cameron was able to sit up on his own. It was one of those things that both Sara and I noticed at different times. Not really sure if it was new or if we had just not noticed it before. I may not know when he started sitting up, but I’m reminded how good he is at it every time I try and change his diaper.

I do remember when he started pulling himself up and “walking” around with the help of various items of furniture. It was out of nowhere, but looked like he had been doing it for years. So that is where we were as he passed his first birthday. Not yet walking, but really on the verge.

Cameron is still is off the charts for size. He is nearly 30 pounds, 33 inches or so and his head is…..proportional! We had heard from friends and our doctor that his size would likely delay his walking. So much to balance and carry around with him. I was prepared for him to go a couple more months without walking. In fact, we didn’t have shoes for him until after he started walking. We had to make an emergency Sunday stop at the Leesburg outlets after visiting friends for the weekend. The outlet kid shoe store experience is probably worth a separate blog that Sara can guest write. I got to stay in the car with the dog!

Last week is was becoming clear that he was really, really close. He was standing on his own. The balance was pretty much down. Now, could he move forward? His 11-year-old cousin Jack stayed with us for much of last week. He has three younger siblings at home, so he was much better equipped to help him walk than we are! His guidance led to a couple of mini steps on a couple occasions. You could count these as his first steps, but I wouldn’t call it walking. That changed last Friday afternoon after we got Jack back to his Dad.

Carrying the Nintendo Wii steering wheel previously used by Jack for hours of Spring Break Mario Kart, Cameron started walking. He made it from our big comfy basement chairs to the stairs. He dove to the stairs, almost an exclamation point to the whole event. He’s been on the go ever since. *Note, I did get this on video. All 8 seconds in vertical iPhone video. I’ll add the video in a separate Facebook post since I’m not smart enough to get it embedded here.*

In the week since, he’s walking all over the place. Usually it ends with a face-plant or a hard landing on his tush. He isn’t 100% sure yet that he preferred using his two feet to crawling. He would likely win the 100 meter crawling race at the baby Olympics. He LOVES crawling. But I get the sense that within a month, he will love walking even more.

When he starts running, I may have to go back to working!