The Johnsons: First Steps

Jax took his first real steps today! He's been crawling for ages and loves to climb (makes me very, very nervous), but his interest in walking has been practically nonexistent. However, today he had a major breakthrough.

Here's how it went down: Sadie was asleep, I was lying on the sofa (wishing I was asleep), and Jax was wide awake standing and holding onto the TV console. We were playing a game where he opens the door to the TV cabinet and I tell him, "No, no Jax" and then he quick closes it and laughs. Well during one door closure he became really excited and let go of the TV cabinet and started walking towards me. He took a good 9 or so steps and then dropped to the floor and laughed. I'm not sure he realized he had done anything special but I went berserk. He's been so close for so long. And I have been so anxious for him to walk because a) he is really heavy and it hurts my back and hips to hold him and b) he's always squirming/kicking/elbowing my huge belly wanting to get down.

I'm trying not to be too excited. Sadie took 9 steps when she was 11 months old and still didn't officially walk until she was 15 months old. However, all afternoon he kept letting go of the sofa and taking 5 or 6 steps so I think he's pretty close. Yea!

Anyways, here are a few pictures from today to document what he's like lately.

We went to the playground this morning and he loved playing in the sand.

Can you tell his face is covered in sand? Yuck!

Sadie found a little shade and made sand castles for a while.

Both kids' favorite activity is swinging.

This afternoon we went to the library. By this point he was getting good at taking steps but I couldn't get any good pictures of him doing it. He was climbing all over the place, though.