6 Days..and Toddlerhood ...

Six days from now Joey will turn one. He will no longer be my "fill in the blank"-month-old, he will be my one-year old.  I think I will refer to him as 13 months, 14 months, etcetera because I can. 
Today Joey officially became a toddler. Does that mean he is no longer a baby? Agh. Are babies toddlers?  Are toddlers babies?  Are they mutually exclusive because I cannot digest the thought.  Why does motherhood make me so sentimental?  I don't think I can blame it on leftover pregnancy hormones anymore. Ha..

And because I want to remember, this is how it went.  After really taking his true first steps as a very wiggly seven and a half month old (two or three of them, from me to his playhouse in his bedroom) and a parent imposed hiatus from the ventures of walking, Joey took his first self-motivated, completely independent sequence of more than three steps today.  He has been able to walk for quite some time now.  Most people have not seen him do it because I really don't think he actually liked doing it until today.  Regardless, he has only been walking when really coaxed off an object like the couch or if we hold him up and then have him walk from person to person. 

Today, I was sitting on the couch watching him while he was playing independently.  I had ruffled the toys in his little wicker box so that the toys that had been on the bottom were now on the top and I was watching him explore.  He was holding his little ball that is half green and half pink and makes a chiming noise when he shakes it and standing unassisted next to his box shaking away.  I thought to myself how there was a marked difference in him today.  All of the sudden he was constantly just standing and holding on to things like toys or remotes (!) instead of the couch or the wall or something else to support him. 

He stood there shaking and shaking and I watched, amazed at how he was just standing there playing as if he does this all the time.  And then, like it was nothing, he walked slowly, perfectly, and cautiously, pausing to catch his balance, and kept going all the way from the box he was standing by to his little play table that was pushed against the wall.  It took him about eight steps.

I immediately called Joe and recounted the story to him.  I could hear the excitement in his voice and in that moment I remember feeling just how grateful I was that I was here to watch this moment in time.  So grateful. I hung up the phone with Joe and Joey did it again. And has been doing it all day. He's a toddler now, just like that.  This has been such a special day.