October 07, 2006
Baby steps
Since Otis turned one the question we are most commonly asked is 'Is he walking yet?'.
Grandma often regales us with the story of how Justin was a late walker. At 16 months Justin had yet to walk. This was a source of great embarrassment to Grandma, whose friends' children were all walking. She decided he needed some encouragement, and so sent him off to childcare in shorts, where the concrete floors were a strong disincentive to crawling.
Until recently Otis had shown little interest in joining the rest of us on two feet. Enter the trolley. We bought him a little wooden trolley, and now he loves nothing better than to motor up and down the hall or backyard, looking up at us occasionally to say 'look what I can do'. He trundles along happily until he hits something, then calls out to us 'urggh, urggh, urggh' until we dutifully arrive to turn the trolley around so he can trundle off once more.
A while ago at the playground we met a little girl who just couldn't understand why Otis wasn't walking. She bent down to talk to him, 'Come on, up you get. Stand up, come on, walk'.
