when the parents are away....

So, Ella spent the night at her grandparents on Friday. She took her first independent steps while she was in their kitchen. According to the story relayed to me, she wanted to get to the baby gate that blocks entry into the downstairs bathroom. She had been holding onto my mother's hands and let go of them to take two steps to the gate. Then she held onto the gate and turned around looking for my mother's hands. She then proceeded to hold onto one of my mom's hands and play with the gate with her free hand.

Today, with me, something almost equally amazing happened. She was standing up, playing with a large sheet of stiff, clear plastic. She had been playing with it while it was on top of the coffee table, but it fell off and she moved away from the table (by holding onto one of my hands) to pick it up. Then she got excited, let go of me, and held onto the plastic with both hands. It is very hard to say how long she actually balanced like this. Probably no more than 2 seconds, but that really does seem like a long time when it is happening. The whole time she was looking at me with big, excited eyes. Whether she was excited because she had the plastic, or because she realized what she was doing is unclear. She balanced very well, though. At the end of the time she didn't lose her balance. Instead, she dropped the plastic and reached out for my hand, again. Obviously, much praise was then lavished upon her.

As mentioned in an earlier post, she is walking a lot by only holding onto one hand. However, she has not completely let go of her dependence on wanting two hands sometimes. I think that a lot of this is mental, though. You can tell because she really barely seems to use the support of the hands when she is holding on. She thinks she needs the support more than she actually does.

At the rate she is going, I bet that she will be independently walking by Christmas! What a present that will be.