“It looks like she may have stepped in gum, or play-doh.”
We’ve been harbouring a little secret around here. Our little bum-scooting maniac is showing signs that she’s no longer content with just having access to the things directly in front of her on the floor. She’s decided that the things on the other side of the table or the other end of the couch are way more interesting and she wants to have them in her hands as quickly as possible. Bum scooting is not quick, she’s come to realize, and so, very tentatively, we have a side-stepping little girl. It’s been happening consistently in her crib for a couple of months, but since she still wasn’t pulling herself up to stand on anything that didn’t allow her to have a strong hold on something (her crib/playpen rail, Jess’s hair), we thought that we might be paused there for a while. But while we were in PEI, she started to figure out how to pull herself up to the side of the couch and then up on a table and since then it’s just been a rollercoaster of movement: up and down, standing all over the couch, throwing the cushions out of her way, reaching off the couch, falling off the couch and then finally figuring out how to put her feet down and slide off the couch. She stands to be taller than the dog, stands to get closer to the tv, stands to shove her face in yours if you don’t let her see what you’re eating RIGHT THIS MINUTE. Then slowly, the stepping caught up too and as an added bonus she figured out how to climb over the arm of one couch and on to the other. Our sweet baby girl has turned into a non-stop moving, tornado of a child and for the first time, we’ve uttered the words “baby-proofing” and not just to pass a home study!
But then today we picked Lily up from school and Jess noticed something on the bottom of her shoe. A wad of something pink and sticky – gum or play-doh and I had to bite my cheeks to keep from crying a flood of happy tears. Lily stepped in something and her shoe is dirty.
Let me repeat that, in case you’re not getting it: Lily STEPPED in something and her shoe is dirty. Those shoes have been pristine since the first day she wore them. They’re never dirty – especially not the bottoms of them. The sides may look a tiny bit scuffed from bum-scooting, but the bottoms have remained beautiful. Until today. Until Lily stepped in something.
I was thrilled the first time she pulled herself up on me, positioned herself and then sat back down on my knee – I had an inkling that we were on to something big. But a dirty shoe? That’s bigger than big, that’s a milestone.
