the girl with microscope eyes (or, how to improve fine motor skills)

it has been three weeks since emmi's first fledgling steps, and since then she is now officially walking around everywhere. it's great news, but the bad news is that she is now walking around everywhere. she is like a visa card in reverse: she's everywhere you don't want her to be. ergo, the gates are installed and the fences are up blocking off the tv. our living room now resembles guantanamo effin' bay, but with toys.

she also has picked up (no pun intended) a habit of finding and zooming in on the tiniest imperceptible piece of fuzz on the carpet. i look over to her, and she bends down, reaches out with thumb and forefinger, all dainty-like, and seemingly picks up nothing. yet the next thing i know is there is a thread the size of a nose hair in her hand. i grab it, put it in my pocket, and go about my business. until, that is, the next piece of fuzz makes it into her hand. i swear i don't know how she sees these in the carpet, unless we have given birth to a baby terminator who thinks that carpet fuzz is sarah connor.

and now that she is walking, she is also testing her boundaries. she understands 'no', but that sometimes doesn't stop her. i don't blame her - she is a kid, and god knows my dad is looking down and smiling, because i have found myself saying the same thing i heard as kid: 'don't touch things you're not supposed to touch...'

i have also been trying to perfect 'the look': you know, that look that a parent can give that will scare the bejeezus out of a child enough to freeze them in their tracks. i've tried it on her, but i probably look pretty dumb. i imagine i look something like the rock:

if this is true, she will probably be laughing too hard to continue the offending behavior. not quite the effect i was going for, but i guess if it works it works.

two small steps, one giant leap (or, how to beam with pride)

it wasn't much, but it was a lot.

emmi took her first unassisted steps tonight, in full view of me, kathy, and her godparents who happened to be on a video chat at the time. for a few weeks she's been doing a tippytoe-goosestep looking walk when holding someone's hands, and even more recently taking steps with holding just one hand, as well as cruising around any and every piece of furniture in the living room that will support her, and some that won't support her; in those cases she usually ends up on her butt with a 'wtf??' face. she has even been standing up on her own, and when she does, you can see that she is trying to figure out what should happen next.

but tonight was different. in what could be described as looking like a drunken stumble, emmi took two unassisted steps from her stand up piano to the sofa. not really believing what we just saw, we guided her back and she did it again! she knew she had done something great, because she was as excited as a squirrel in a room full of acorns.

we were excited, too. how could you not be? here's this little peanut, two days away from her first birthday, having this seminal moment in which she begins to truly take control of her own destiny. we take for granted our ability to walk, but for emmi (and all babies) it is literally a leap of faith.

well, tonight those first two steps were her leap. and nothing is gonna stop her now.