Enthusiasm

Chase is spending the last days of his first year trying very hard to learn to walk. He will let go of whatever he is holding onto, whether it be your finger, his shopping cart, the wall, your leg, your clothes or some very unstable object (those seem to be his preference) and just stand there looking like, "Hmmm, well what do I do now?" A few days ago he decided to take a few almost accidental, very tiny, wobbly steps toward my outstretched arms holding a bowl full of Cheerios (the things this kid will do for food). Yesterday at school, he took three consecutive steps before falling. Progress.

Chase woke up early this morning and I figured the cause was teething which I blame for most things. Lately when he's woken up early like this, he's just wanted to snuggle and will quickly fall back to sleep. Not today. I walked in to him standing in his crib with an enthusiastic grin. Still thinking he wanted to snuggle, I tried getting him to fall back to sleep. It was not to be. He is a strong little dude and squirmed and yelled until I gave up the fight. My next idea was to give him his milk because he had not eaten well last night (again, blaming teething) and I figured he was starving. Nope. More squirming, more yelling and a strong throw of the sippy cup later, I decided to turn on the light in his room and see what he would do. Immediately he gave me a great big smile, made a motion to get down, stood clutching one of the slats of his crib with a determined look on his face, let go and took a step. My enthusiastic little boy just wanted to get an early start at practicing walking.