The Beginning of the End

We are THIS CLOSE to having two walkers in our house.  For the past two weeks Ben has been trying his hardest to steady himself on those tree trunk legs, and is taking a few wobbly steps in between Eric and I sitting on the floor.  In the past two days though, his balance has improved so that he can now stand on his own for 20-30 seconds at a time, he can take a couple of steps then stop and stand still then take another step or two, and he is confident enough to take off on his own towards a toy (or that chair way across the room!).  Last night I counted 10 steps as his longest walk before he went crashing down.  Check it out:

I am thrilled that our little (big) guy is on the move.  He's going to be so much happier because he'll really be able to keep up with the big kids.  And, of course, how proud we are of him.  I can so clearly remember being miserable at this time last year, can recall him being born like it was yesterday (seriously that was 11 months ago?!).  Where has the time gone?  But, of course, with every new thing Ben can do that moves him towards big kid status and away from being a baby, I feel a little pang of sadness that I didn't feel with Natalie.  I feel fairly certain that the reason for that is that we knew we'd have more kids so when Nat was doing all this exciting stuff, in the back of my mind I knew we'd be going through it all again.  This time around, while the decision isn't 100%, it feels like this might be the end of baby stuff.  Does that little pang outweigh the prospect of another year+ of sleeplessness?  I suppose that's yet to be seen...

We learned a new game at our house!  Hide and seek.  Last night Natalie decided we should play.  And so we did.  She "hid."  Which is to say that she went into the hallway, faced the wall and stood there very still, but giggling uncontrollably, while Ben and I pretended not to see her and made a big production out of looking in all the actual places she could have hid.  It was a riot.  Ben played the part marvelously, and shrieked with delight when we "found" her in the hallway.  After three rounds of that, with her hiding in the same spot every time, it was time for me and Ben to hide.  At first I thought I should pick an actual hiding spot, behind a chair or something not too challenging.  Then I decided that we should play Natalie's game, so Ben and I picked a corner and stood facing the wall there.  Natalie walked by us, pretending not to see, walked around the house once, then (amazingly) found us!  She was so pleased with herself, and again Ben shrieked at being found!  It was pretty cute, and a good reminder that even though my babies seem to be growing at warp speed, they still want and need me.