Dax's Journal

Yesterday, when I went to pick up Dax from daycare, Camden's mommy looked at me with wide eyes and exclaimed, "I can't believe Dax is walking already!"

Um.....pardon?

That's when his teacher, Melissa, chimed in and informed me that he'd been "walking all over the place".

For a couple of weeks or so, Dax has been able to take several steps unassisted. He's also more than able to walk for long distances holding on to just a single parental finger (more for moral support than physical support). But we've not seen him take more than six steps at a time.

I was so excited to get him home. I imagined Cat and I watching our little one walking hither and fro, leaving terrified kitties in his wake.

Not so much. When I got him home? Well, he apparently decided that our floor was made of molten lava and that touching it with any part of his body would be seriously detrimental to his health. He became a little lemur, clinging to me as if his very life depended on it.

Today at daycare they tried to get him to repeat yesterday's performance. Anyone who knows Dax should not be surprised by this. He has inherited *someone's* stubbornness gene. If you want him to do something, he won't. If you don't want him to? He will. So as they all cajoled him to walk, he averted his eyes and busied himself with whatever was closest to him.

"I can't hear you. I'm very busy with this block, you see."

Tonight Cat and I got him to walk back and forth between us. He did pretty well considering that he tends to get overly excited and bouncy and giggly and that does not good walking make.

As I am writing this, Cat is in the other room working out. So of course Dax has been walking back and forth between the coffee table and his toys, from the magazine rack to the table, from the chair to the coffee table. Here, there, and everywhere. I'm busily typing so perhaps he thinks he's not being watched.

We're going to be taking Dax on his first airline flight in nine days. We're having a mini family reunion in Colorado. I figure a few days hanging out with his three cousins ought to get him moving.

God help us.