Dylan takes a step; Zephyr stacks.

Moments ago Dylan took his first step.

 

When Reid started walking, he was very excited. He'd pull himself up and launch himself in the direction he wanted to go.  His face full of a huge smile, he'd take a few steps before he lost his balance, crashing to the floor in a fit of laughter.

 

Dylan has been balancing on two feet for over a month, and "cruising" for about as long.  (The term "cruising" describes the way babies will hold on to the edge of objects for balance while they get around on two feet).  Only a couple days after he started balancing with no hands he started crawling.  We had been worried he'd skip crawling all together, but instead he quickly became a speed-crawler, far outpacing his twin brother.  It was interesting how he learned two new skills in such quick succession.

 

Just a few minutes ago, Dylan was standing on two feet without holding on to anything, and decided he was facing the wrong direction.  He carefully shifted his balance, picked up one foot, and moved it.  Then he did it again, and again.  Then he decided he was done, and sat down to keep playing.  He didn't even seem to notice that he had taken his first steps.

 

In keeping with the 2 new skills pattern, he just started doing stairs, too.  We keep the stairs at home blocked off, so the babies don't get to practice.  But we're on vacation in a 3-story house at the beach.  Dylan discovered the stairs and now practices them regularly.  He will crawl from the ground floor to the loft above the 3rd floor without a pause.

 

Zephyr, weighing 5lbs more, gets an "A" for effort.  He sits at the bottom step and strains and makes a lot of noise and tries to get his feet in different position, but doesn't get very far. 

 

I don't want to give the impression that Zephyr isn't learning.  Last week he was putting a long toy block in an empty jar and figuring out why it wouldn't come out in certain positions.  Yesterday he found a set of coasters and started putting them away in their tray.  Today he started stacking things.  Right now he is looking at a rubber ducky that is trapped in an otherwise empty Animal Crackers tub, trying to figure out how to retrieve it.

 

Fun times.