Wobbling..I Mean Walking

Once Sierra was able to stand quite sturdily on her pudgy little legs Trevor thought it would be fun to teach her to walk. At first it was like trying to walk the old fashioned "walking doll" I had as a kid. Everything was stiff and we had to sort of kick out each of Sierra's legs in a walking manner. That graduated into leading her by the arms and leaning her to one side, then the other, until she slid her foot forward. This brilliant child that we have soon figured out this walking thing quite handily and has determined it to be great fun. She wants to walk all the time now and explores every corner and shelf and everything in them that are two feet or lower in our house.

Problem: she cannot do this on her own, a finger from each of our hands is required to accomplish this new skill. Result: we must walk with her, a great way to achieve sore backs and knees depending on the chosen method of following her.

Sierra has even mastered the concept of stairs; to go up she lifts her leg until her foot touches the stair and we lift her and she pushes with that little leg. For going down there's no fear, simply step off with one foot and the rest of her (and us) will follow.

I thought I was tired before.

As for crawling, I'm not so sure Sierra will accomplish that before walking on her own. She knows she can walk so why bother learning to crawl? "Crawling is for babies!" She leans over farther than anyone I know, and manages to scoot herself forward slightly while on her bum. To go beyond that generally results in her falling on her tummy and face and I get a lot of frustrated grunts and eventually wails.

At least I won't have to worry about worn our knees on her clothes at this rate!