Early to Talk.... Late to Walk?

Will (sort of) has a new trick! Technically, Will took his first steps 6 days earlier than Kenzie (she was just 2 days shy of 14 months and Will was 6). However, that being said, Kenzie technically "walked" prior to Will. We are now 4 days into 14 months and Will is still refusing to do much more than stand up, take a few steps, and then sit back down and crawl.

What Will CAN do (that his sister didn't do until after she was a pretty solid walker) is stand up unassisted in the middle of the room from a sitting position. The first time I turned and saw him randomly in the middle of the room almost a month ago, I thought he walked there. Turns out, he didn't. He just stood up. Okay, then. He is also a crazy climber. The kids climbs on everything. The day he took his first steps he also gained some confidence and started climbing furniture that prior to that moment he had not yet attempted. He has climbed for months, but it has gotten a bit out of control in the last week and a half.

Am I worried? No. Am I disappointed? A bit. I am not the least bit concerned. I know Will CAN walk. I just also know he doesn't care to. It's a bit frustrating for us. He is heavy. He wants his independence. He just doesn't want to do the work. He knows crawling is easier for him now and he is having a difficult time giving up on that.

In the last week he has taken a handful of steps a handful of times. Thankfully, Nana saw him take about 8 or 9 of them (his most at one time so far) the day after he took his first steps and I posted this video. If she had not seen him walk, I would think I was going crazy and was imagining things just based on his reluctance to do it now.

Truth be told, I want Will to walk mostly for my own selfish reasons. My arms and back hurt. I know him walking doesn't end him needing to be carried sometimes, but a bit of a break would be nice. Plus, I am sort of tired of people giving me weird looks when I tell him he is 14 months old and then have to explain that he isn't walking yet to the follow up question regarding whether he wants to walk around everywhere or "run around" after his sister yet (he does chase her... just not by walking). Most of the time those weird looks come from either people who do not have children, ones whose children are older and it has been a while since they had small children, or people whose children walked earlier than a year or right around a year. I wish people would remember that there is a wide range of "normal" and even if he walked late, it doesn't mean anything negative. I even had one lady ask me if I had asked our pediatrician about him not walking yet. Yeah. That happened. Um, no. I didn't talk to her about it because she would probably just laugh at me and tell me I'm crazy in her awesome accent (she's from somewhere in South America, but I can't remember exactly where.)

Back to the title of this blog. I heard the phrase "Early to talk, late to walk" back when Will first started saying his first words with meaning just before 7 months old. I guess it was just people preparing me for the fact that he might be a verbal child with little interest in walking. Will crawled a bit later than the typical child might... however, because he first crawled within a few hours of having his cranial helmet removed, we aren't sure if it is related. 

Will was able to pull up and cruise fairly early as well, but that didn't translate to actual walking very quickly at all. We sometimes wonder if the helmet had remained on for longer, would Will have skipped crawling? Maybe, but we will never know. 

Regardless, we are on our way to having two walking children. He is getting there. I sort of hoped he would be walking by Christmas (and when I say walking, I mean full on walking the majority of the time), but now I am hoping he starts getting really good when Steven is home the week after Christmas so that he can witness the change. If not, I know he will walk soon and then we are in for it.