Walking

There you have it, folks -- the first video to capture Laurel walking! [Note: I don't know why the video is a plain black box with no preview thumbnail, but if you click "play" it will work!]

Her very first step came on Thursday, six days ago, but she was utterly unsteady, launching herself on faith alone and falling immediately afterward, and I was sure it would be weeks before she actually began to walk. But she added an additional lurching step or two on Sunday, moving quickly to get them in before she fell, and by Monday she began to show some improvement.

The speed of this development surprised our whole family. After all, Laurel had only begun to stand on her own a few days before she attempted walking -- even on Monday, Isaac was still marveling at the sight of Laurel standing there, let alone walking!

Yesterday Laurel walked just a little bit better, and she didn't have to rush to get in three steps before falling. Unfortunately her attempts were still infrequent enough that I couldn't catch it on video.

Today, however, she figured out how to stop walking without losing her balance. That means she can often take a step or two, pause to steady herself, and then continue walking. The longest stretch she walked today was only five feet, so walking is far from a reliable source of transportation -- if she wants to go somewhere in particular, she crawls.

But most exciting is that she tries walking over and over again -- which meant it was easy to catch her on video!