Julia apparently found sitting a boring activity. The view is much better from up here.
The greatest thing about parenting as your infant child turns toddler on you is that on any given day you may be in store for a milestone that the day before hadn’t even entered your mind as a possibility — nor something that you were especially prepared for.
Whether it be crawling, a first word or a first step, these “firsts” are moments in time that come with such gravity and are often lost — better yet — replaced within months as seemingly more momentous change takes hold.
This morning was just such an event in the Daloisio household.
Having never really shown much interest or ability in pulling herself up to a standing position before, and still basking in the glow of mastering the crawl — at speeds more normally equated with an emu* — Julia decided today would be the day that she would change her “eye-level” from roughly fourteen inches (on her knees) to thirty inches (on her feet) and take a new perspective on her surroundings by pulling herself up to the living room table.
*Ryan once learned at school that an emu could run 40 miles per hour. It may have been the first fact Ryan brought home from school that I had no knowledge of prior — I can’t wait to experience school again through Ryan’s eyes. Imagine “re-learning” Geometry, Biology and American History from scratch. — and I remember being totally shocked that (a) and emu could run and (b) an emu could run that fast. Since then, the emu has become a standard of measurement for all things related to speed. “Daddy, are we going faster than an emu?” or “Is an elephant faster or slower than an emu?”.
The table surface is no longer a "safe zone"
To watch the nacent feelings of accomplishment, pride and sheer joy that your infant feels as they toddle their way into new activities and skills is a sight that makes a whole day seem brighter — that is until the realization strikes that you hadn’t yet thought of baby proofing anything above the previously required fourteen inch mark.
Not to be satisfied with one new found skill, a few hours Julia later preceded to use the crawling proficiency she had been training for and her newly acquired “pulling up to a standing position” skill in combination to climb one stair. Thankfully the shock of that accomplishment prompted her to stop and yell “Mamamamamama” before climbing further, or more terrifying a thought, falling backwards. As Jen appropriately said shortly thereafter, “no more taking your eyes off the ball, not even for a second.”
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