On his way

My son passed a major milestone toward finishing a triathlon today - 5 steps past to be exact. He’s been on the verge of walking for a couple of weeks, but something was different today. When I got home I was greeted at the door by the whole clan. The garage door gives me away every time.

T seemed to be very animated today talking and babbling away telling me all the new things he had discovered. As usual I carried him around for a few minutes. When I had finished greeting everyone, I set him down in the middle of the floor. He stood there for a few seconds and looked at me. Something was different. I took a couple of steps back and motioned for him come toward me. 5 steps later he was standing at my legs. He was very proud of himself. We were very proud of him!

In writing this tonight I started to get pretty philosophical about the first steps of any journey – blah blah blah. Then I started thinking about all the stuff that had to happen for him to get to the point where he could cross three feet of carpet standing up – yadda yadda. After writing and rewriting several times it occurred to me that none of it was anything new to anyone – but me! All in all, I feel pretty proud that I was able to stop my hectic life for 20 seconds and just be there with him. It was the best 20 seconds I had invested in any task all day.