walking

Paige was a little peanut and with hardly any hair, so she looked like a baby for a long time. Being my first baby, I encouraged her to do everything. She was always strong. Picked her head up and looked around when she was a day old -- I did not know babies could even do that! So when she was seven months old you found me putting her hands on one of those baby walking toys so she could "walk" back and forth between two people. She loved doing it, but it looked so funny -- she was all of maybe 12 lbs and no hair and looked way too little to be walking!
She ended up taking her first steps on a vacation to Hawaii when she was 9 months old. I was so thrilled!

DJ tripled his birth weight by 6 months old and weighed 20 lbs. He was a Big Boy! But DJ was 'floppy' (for lack of a better word) and never tried to stand or anything. In fact, he never really held on when you carried him.
* I herniated a disc in my back with this guy, but that is a story in itself --
I really believed that there was no possibility that he would walk as early as his sister did. I never coaxed him like I did with his sister. I had learned my lesson. He was already a fast crawler -- I did not want to chase him any sooner than I had to. Well, I was wrong.
DJ also walked at 9 months.

You know, Kelly was really strong too -- maybe it's a girl thing.
By the time she came along and was getting to the 'let me just pull myself up to stand' stage, I was discouraging her from doing it. Her Father and her Grandfather would ignore my warnings and clap their hands for her and try to get her to take steps to them when she was only 7 and 8 months old.
(HA! I warned them)
Even with all the confusion in her life, Miss Independent walked at 9 months too.

I am pretty convinced at this point that it has to be genetic right?
I walked at 10 months
and so did Mike.

Lately I get people either asking me if I am holding him or exclaiming over the fact that Mikey can walk.
I'm thinking:
Uh, Yeah. He has only been walking half his life.
Because with this last one I was just resigned to the fact that he would start walking when he was
9 months old

and he did

Only this one RUNS!