She took her first steps!

My brother A and sister-in-law M gave R this Leap Frog table for her birthday, and told us that it helped our nephew G learn to walk because he would move between the table and another toy, and they gradually kept moving the toys further apart (or G just wanted to get between them faster) until he actually took steps to get from one to the other.

The first day R got the table, she spent 15 minutes straight just cruising circles around the thing. Initially, she singlemindedly went only in one direction (counter-clockwise) but she's since learned to move in a clockwise direction too. Lately, she's been reaching for the table from other pieces of furniture, usually the couch or the chair. While she has previously moved one foot while standing to try and maintain her balance, two days ago we saw her for the first time move both feet in a forwards direction. J says he's seen her do something like that before, but I hadn't, so I say it counts as her first steps!


And, because you're thinking this, yes, we were incredibly lucky to get it on video! We were actually trying to get some pictures of her with one of her favorite toys these days, this little telephone she's had since she was born but has only recently gotten really interested in.

We joke about how this toy is going to be so archaic by the time she's bigger because phones just don't look like this anymore, with cordless phones and cell phones being what they are. But anyway, she loves this thing. It rattles and she sits and shakes it. She's also really gotten into putting it on her shoulder and hugging it between her cheek and shoulder, kind of like the move you do when trying to talk on the phone without holding the receiver in your hands. You actually see R doing this in the video. It is so cute.

When she walks around with it, she also likes to hand the phone to us, as if she's answered it and it's for one of us. She hands us the receiver and we talk into it, usually to Grammie and Grampie or Grandma and Grandpa, who are always very excited to hear from her and want to talk to her again, and then we give it back to her. She sometimes says “Hiiii” or babbles a bit, but usually she just cradles the phone for a bit and then gives it back to us to talk again. Too fun.