Baby Steps

Tomorrow is a big day. We are traveling to the shoe store to get Erin's first pair of walking shoes. Unlike her oldest sister Beth, who had many pairs of adorable yet unpractical shoes during her first year of life, this will be Erin's first pair of footwear. We know it's time to make the purchase because she has begun to take her first steps.

It's incredible to watch a baby learning how to walk. Dozens of times each day she uses all her muscles to stand up, and then slowly and carefully takes a step. More often than not, she falls down and then repeats the process. She hits her head. She bumps her arm. She twists her leg. But she still gets up again and tries to conquer this skill. My older children are much the same. I saw Beth today, turning cartwheel after cartwheel with no rest in between, in an attempt to perfect the move. I can remember doing that as a young gymnast myself...doing handspring after handspring, to the point of exhaustion.

It's funny how we seem to lose that drive as we age. I tried a step aerobics class but stopped after a couple of evenings of feeling foolish because I didn't know all the steps. I tried knitting a while back but kept dropping stitches so I put the needles in the closet. What happened to that drive that I see in my kids? The ability to keep working at something new over and over again until a skill is conquered? It's something that we need to learn from our kids, I guess. They teach us as much as we teach them.

Regardless, when I took Erin out of the tub tonight and dressed her in her soft pajamas with little yellow ducks on them, I held her close for a few minutes. She cuddled into me, and I inhaled the smell of baby powder and Johnson's Baby shampoo, and felt her soft skin on my cheek. I know these first few steps away from us are inevitable, but she's still my baby. And she will be for a long time to come.