We have a walker!!!

Joshua took his first halting steps this week!!  We were at small group over at Hilary and Steven's, hanging out at the end of the evening and enjoying some really tasty chocolate treats.  Joshua was standing, as he does a lot of the time now, and he saw me holding a box of chocolate-covered almonds.  They were just out of his reach, but close enough to him to be tantalizing -- so instead of plopping on his bottom and crawling over to me, he reeeeached out with his hands, and then took his first few steps!

We then got him to repeat his new trick.  Carrie put a few almonds on a plate, and held the plate out just beyond his reach.  And again, he reached out and tottered forward a few steps, following the plate as she pulled it away.  So exciting!!  Of course, he then got upset that he wasn't allowed to have any of the chocolates -- all that effort, for nothing.  Poor boy, I would have been upset, too!

But since then, he's been testing out his new skills and walking like a champ, even without the lure of forbidden chocolate.  :)  He'll still generally only take two or three steps at a time, but he's doing it really consistently.  Before we know it, he'll be running all around the house...

Just this morning, I had the camera out in hopes of catching his fleeting baby steps on video.  What I got was beyond my wildest dreams -- a really long stretch, several seconds long, of him tottering his way towards me!

(Please excuse my crazy over-excited voice... I've got to learn to modulate that for these videos.  :)  And please also excuse the fact that I cut the top of his head out of the frame for much of the video -- I was much too excited to pay attention to my camera screen!)