Parker had very solid walk weeks and we feel we are on the cusp of overcoming one piece of uncertainty.
On Monday morning, as usual, I fixed the cochlear implant to Parker's head before lifting him out of the crib and onto the ground beside me. While leaving him propped up beside the crib for balance I reached for a diaper. Parker casually walked over to his toy car garage some 10 ft away, put his hand on top of it to steady himself and then stood there playing with his cars like a normal boy. I sat 10 ft away in utter happiness.
The day before, Sunday, while at our friend Richard Shurtleffs house for dinner, we were having Parker walk between Renee and I, bribing him to go to someone else holding his pacifier. At first he hesitated, looking for us to hold his hand and scaling along side the couch. Then the other children thought we were playing a game and started running between the different adults and the fireplace laughing. Parker, shirking his inhibition, forgetting that he was handicapped, joined in with the other children laughing too.
Our apartment has a narrow hallway that is probably 75 ft long with red carpetting. Saturday Parker walked up and down it several times-- arms stretched out to the sides and pushing off or steadying himself every so often-- but walking unassisted nonetheless.
The French have an expression "ca y est"; --roughly translated as there it is -- but connotes a sense of that's now done. It feels like, this week for walking, ca y est.
He isn't graceful, he has a certain aspect of drunken sailor in his walk, but he is upright and deliberate.
After his first walking week we left for 10 days travelling in the UK and he continued his progression, getting continually better at avoiding obstacles and re-balancing after a sister brush-by. In one apartment we stayed in he was begging for the drink I had in my hands which I finally gave him. He held it in one hand, walked 15ft across the entry way and through the front room to the coffee table where he placed his free hand for balance, then proceded to down the drink.
At the swimming pool he would walk on the wet cement, slip a bit but regain control and continue his progression to the water.
We have even seen him walk across the room, stop midway and pick something off the ground, and continue walking.
He still prefers to hold my hand and when he gets tired he wants to be held. He also tends to crawl when he doesn't have a fixed reference point, but still, everyday you will see him just walking by randomly, or decide for no reason to leave the couch and walk to the table.
The girls all walked at between 10 and 13 months. Parker has taken at least twice that and it may be some time before he totally masters it and uses it as his main method of transportation-- still, one worry seems to have been lifted as one more fear seems to have disappeared.
