Stepping Stones

While I am always entranced with our in-house, real-time, living biology experiment, I have been particularly enamored with her language acquisition, increasing attention span and her mobility of late. I am astounded by her auditory processing speed and her ability to learn something almost immediately after she sees it or is taught to do something. From her signing to her animals sounds to her increasing length of words, our little Peanut Butter astounds me every day. In the past two weeks she has shown incredible growth where walking is concerned. We are learning that she will not do something independently until she feels like she has reached some level of mastery. This has been particularly true of walking.

First, she insisted on mastering standing up independently while holding onto something. Next, she starting letting go and hovering in space. On January 23 we were playing in the yoga room at the climbing gym while we traded belays and all of sudden she stood up in the middle of the room unassisted with a truck in her hand. I almost passed out with amazement. She herself seemed a bit surprised at her courage and tried it out one more time to prove that it really did happen. The very next day Joanna was visiting to introduce her sister to our family and Lulabee walked four steps between me and Joanna. To my surprise, I was overcome with joy and elation. As I have said, the longer it takes her to walk, the less head injuries she/we will have to endure. But I was as proud as a peacock. 

Since then she has figured out how to maneuver her little cart around objects and can do a complete 180 to get out of a space (like the bathroom). She climbs in and out of the plastic car in the courtyard and can walk around to the back to push it down the sidewalk. She is a walking machine when we take her out with her walking contraption that Jim made. She is a fast as can be and often takes her weight off of the contraption and walks on her own accord, although she doesn't know this yet. Friday night we were all playing in the living room and suddenly she stood up, steadied herself and walked eight controlled, balanced steps to Daga. Lucy is working so hard on this difficult task and it tickles me to no end to have the privilege to see her develop through this next stepping stone.

The semester is in full-swing and I have no idea how I will ever get all of my work done, but I am thankful every day that I am able to be a student for now and have such a flexible schedule. I was there when she clapped for the first time, said MumMum for this first time, stood on her own and took her first steps. I know I will miss things over time, but this past (almost) 14 months has been the most incredible of my life. I will never know why this darling girl picked us to be her parents, but I am grateful to her every day.