First Step
Robin took his first step today! He was holding onto our TV stand, and I was sitting on a chair in front of my computer, only a little bit away, and he totally let go of the TV stand and walked over to me. It was amazingly great!
Before Robin performed this incredible feat of human ambulation, I was thinking about writing a post to this blog titled “Robin’s Projects.” I was going to tell you all that even though Robin isn’t really talking yet, it’s become very obvious to Sam and me that there a few things his brain is really focusing on right now. One of those things is the whole concept of containers. Robin is fascinated by things that can be put inside other things, or conversely, things that can be taken out of other things. He has a whole array of expensive toys but probably his favorite right now are my hair curlers, which he can remove from their setting and drop into all kinds of other containers, like the bathtub. But he also likes rounding up things (like blocks) and dropping them into other containers (like my lap). Nanita got to experience this obsession first-hand when she introduced Robin to a set of stackable cups and a tray that held them. Hours of fun!
Another of Robin’s current projects is physical: he loves gravity. Dropping things is a big pastime. At some point, of course, the physics experiment becomes a psychological one: it turns from “What will happen when I drop my stuffed doggie over the side of my stroller?” to “How many times will Mommy pick my doggie up for me before she stops giving it back to me?” But still I think that dropping things has an intrinsic interest.
Robin also loves stairs, as I think I’ve mentioned before—but he particularly loves them when he can drag something up to drop down once he reaches the top. But even when he doesn’t have anything to drop, he’ll make beeline for any staircase in his vicinity. Watching him pull himself up, step after step—or toddle down, clinging to my fingers—I can’t help but think that he sees this as his work. He’s practicing for something, something important.
And today, after watching him take a step all by himself, I think all his hard work has paid off! This little human is creating himself, bit by bit, just like he did when he was in my womb. He knows what he needs to do in order to become the human he’s meant to be. And it’s my job to boost that instinctual understanding as far as it will carry him.
