Off and Running... no wait, still crawling.

We're on a countdown at the Raine house. Talia has a mere 17 days left to become a full-fledged walker, or she has a date to visit our doctor at my next prenatal appointment. We thought we had a big breakthrough yesterday - the stinker took her first steps for Uncle Kent and some stranger that works with Uncle Kent - but she has since refused to take any others.

Just to be clear, we are not concerned at all about the fact that she is not walking - she certainly gets into enough stuff as it is. She is 100% capable of walking. She pops up and stands in the middle of nowhere with no support. She walks all over this house, pushing a chair, holding on to furniture, pushing her little walking toys sideways (just to make things more difficult, I guess), and will walk a mile while holding on to 2 fingers. She will even occasionally walk for her Daddy as long as he keeps 1 finger on each of her shoulders. But she refuses to move those cute little feet without the security of someone or something touching her. And before you ask: no, I don't carry her everywhere (she weighs a ton and I'm pregnant, remember?) and yes, we do give her opportunities to walk ALL THE TIME.

The countdown came as a result of my last prenatal appointment. Our doctor was making small talk with me while measuring m'belly, and asked how old Talia was when she started walking. I replied "Um, she's still NOT walking, actually." The doctor looked over at my stubborn daughter, who was holding the little metal step stool up in the air waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay above her head while doing squats, out in the middle of the floor, and asked incredulously "THIS baby isn't walking?" While the doctor did say there is a big difference between ability to walk and willingness to walk, the fact remains that 95% of children are walking by 15 months. That's 95% of ALL children, including those in wheelchairs and those with other physical and/or cognitive impairments such that they will NEVER walk.

So unless something changes drastically sometime soon, in a little over 2 weeks we will be back to charm the pants off of the doc. (Talia will probably choose that moment to take off in a full sprint and never look back.)

(She doesn't walk, but she actually jumps sometimes, and almost never falls down. I'd say her balance is fine, wouldn't you?)

I love my little baby who is rapidly turning into a big girl, and I've been glad to have her baby-ness linger through her extended crawling stint. And her feet are so ridiculously tiny, it is hard to find her good shoes, so I have been lucky that she hasn't needed really good outside shoes yet. But February is coming soon, and I would really like Talia to be nice and sturdy by the time her little brother or sister arrives, since I won't be able to carry them both when we're in a parking lot, etc.

It will be nice to have the dr. confirm what we are already certain of - Talia's physically able to walk. But since I'm pretty sure she's not going to give us a prescription for a cure for stubbornness, we'll still just have to wait until little Tally is good and ready to walk on her own.

(Do you see how she mocks all of us people who walk?)