Stand and deliver

Isaac has been practicing his standing. Maybe "practicing" isn't the right word -- he's not relentlessly pursuing it, recklessly teetering and toppling all the time. He experiments with standing just a few times a day, under controlled conditions, and he falls very gracefully by sitting down on his bottom. He's not a scaredy-cat, but he does seem to be a careful, considered child. So maybe "practice" is the right word after all -- he's taking his time and doing it right.

He has loved to be upright since he was three months old, and his legs seemed to be very strong, so I fully expected standing and walking to come earlier than this. He's been pulling himself up, practicing getting back down, bouncing, and cruising with confidence for several months now, but he likes to keep a hand -- sometimes a single index finger! -- on the furniture as he does it.

The first time I noticed him stand was four weeks ago, and he almost certainly did it by accident -- he was upright holding onto the arm of a chair, and as he let go and moved his hand to another chair, for a second he balanced perfectly and stood on his own. I don't think he noticed. Then several weeks went by without any further standing.

But he began doing it again, to popular acclaim, while his grandparents were visiting last week. At first it seemed by accident, but then he figured it out and began doing it on purpose. One time he stood for about five seconds out on the lawn, and he spent the last three seconds bobbing up and down doing deep knee bends. He laughed as he gently fell to the lawn. At this point his record for standing is 15 seconds. He prefers to stand on a soft surface like the lawn or a carpet (smart kid), and we spend a lot of time in our family room, which has concrete floors -- maybe that's why he does it so intermittently instead of pressing forward toward the goal.

And when we were opening his birthday presents on the 11th, he even took his first step. Maybe. It was toward a toy school bus Craig had just unwrapped -- Isaac, his eyes fixed on this wonderful new object, was so excited that it didn't seem like he knew he was stepping away from the coffee table that had been supporting him. He toppled to the floor immediately, of course, and proceeded to crawl over to the bus. Otherwise he's not interested in walking -- if you hold his arms and try to get him to walk with you, he bends his knees and slumps to the ground like a miniature protester peacefully resisting arrest.

That's okay. If he's not in a rush, neither am I. We can be careful and considered together.