Apparently Arden walked today for Judy - repeatedly. She even stood up without pulling herself up on anything and walked across the room. However, by the time I got there, she was done with any form of walking. To be fair, one of Judy’s youngest daycare charges decided not to sleep at all today and kept the rest of the children awake by screaming at the top of his lungs all day. Arden had a brief cat nap this morning but had been awake non-stop since 10.30 am. By the time we got home, she wanted nothing to do with anything except her cart. I decided to be smart and move the cart out of her way, thinking that if I removed what I felt was her “crutch” she’d have to walk. Nope. I put it on top of the dining room table and she made grabby hand motions at it, clung to the table and cried pitifully until Mike got home and relented.

This brings to mind a funny story that Pauline told me - Lily’s first daycare provider. I said something about how sad it must be for parents when their kids roll over, crawl, say their first word or walk when they’re not with them. She smiled and said, “It never happens here.” I didn’t get it at first and said, “How can that be?” What she meant was that she never TOLD the parents if it happened, so they could pretend in their fantasy land that their children had all of their “firsts” in front of them, in the comfort of their own home. In a way, I appreciate Judy’s honesty - she’s a no BS kind of person. If Arden is crabby, she tells me. If she drove her nuts, she tells me. And if she took her first real steps in Judy’s playroom, she’s certainly going to tell me that, too.

But back to the cart. The push cart was good for Lily, who used it long enough to get her feet under her. I’m convinced that Arden’s become dependent on it and as long as it’s around, she’d rather use that than her legs.

I also realize that whenever I get obsessive about something with my kids (like Lily’s nail biting), it’s not until I let go of it that it happens. In a few months when Arden is roaming around I’ll wonder why it was such a big deal. I think it bothers me so much for a couple of reasons. The first is that selfishly, I’m really tired of carrying her everywhere. Other people in attempts to be helpful say “At least you aren’t chasing her around.” Yep, correct. However, at this point I’d rather chase than carry. The second is that although Lily and Arden haven’t ever been physically precocious, nor have they been behind. They are always just average (tribute to Risa: when people brag to her about how smart their kids are and go on and on about them, Risa tells them her own kids are average and boring - the gushers usually get the point and shut up). Regardless, average is good. I think I’m still paranoid because so many bad things have happened to friends and acquaintance’s children that every time there is a blip I think that this is evidence of some permanent medical issue. I know that this is ridiculous but at least I come clean with my paranoia and weird thoughts. There is a lot of insanity that appears to be inherent with motherhood. Paranoia and guilt seem to always be on the top ten list of things that have changed about me since dilating to 10 centimeters.

Anyway, I’ll keep you all posted on Arden’s progress assuming there is some. Tonight, however, we bypassed our usual attempts to get her to walk and put her straight to bed sans wild rumpus. She was angry but she needed to sleep more than anything else. She is far too young to not be sleeping all day!!!