Jan 18, 2012  •  In Aerin, Baby, Claire, Motherhood, Personal

Walking Without Support

I am happy to announce that, at 15 months of age, Claire has finally started walking.

Let me rephrase that. She has finally started walking without support. Because she has been walking with one hand against the wall or along some furniture, or one hand holding someone’s hand, for over a month now. We all knew that she could physically walk by herself, but that she was too afraid to let go.

Then, just this past weekend, BAM! It’s like she suddenly happened upon a chest full of courage and started walking everywhere by herself.


Dim light + fast-walking kid = blurry picture

I have been so proud of our firstborn lately. Everyone tells us that she’s one of the smartest babies they’ve ever met, and even I get amazed by her quick wit and intelligence from time to time. (I get worried too, because I just know that she’s going to outsmart me and her father…she’s already playing mind games with us and trying to pit us against each other to get what she wants!)

She has not exhibited any signs of teething since my last teething update — and she now has 13 teeth, 5 of which are molars, aka the most painful to sprout. She follows instructions — such as “Take your feet off the table” or “Go throw this away in the trash” — and is also doing splendidly with all three languages we are teaching her. (I stopped keeping track of her words after about the seventh one…I think she knows about twenty now? Should I be keeping better record of this?)

I wish that I could get some videos of her favorite activities, such as identifying different parts of her body, singing and dancing along to songs, and interacting with Aerin, but she is OBSESSED with our Flip videocam and will stop whatever she is doing to try to get her hands on it. She is also fascinated by our camera; hence the lack of photos of her as of late.

Claire’s love for her little sister is so stinkin’ cute. She now calls for Aerin instead of her dad every morning when she wakes up. (“Beh-bee? Beh-bee?!???”) She insists on coming over to help us burp Aerin whenever she sees us prop her up after a bottle. She visibly gets upset when Aerin is crying, and will gently pat her, shove a pacifier in her face (sometimes even the one that she’s using!), or point to the kitchen and yell “Mum mum!” (her current word for all food) as if to remind us that we need to feed her little sister.


How can you NOT love this face?

They say that motherhood never really gets any easier, that each new level of development brings with it a unique set of challenges. I wholeheartedly agree, because while I love each new stage of Claire’s life more than the last, it’s also so much harder. I had believed that Aerin would be more difficult of the two because a newborn requires so much work, but I was wrong.

Because chasing after a toddler, trying to find the best ways to entertain her and educate her and discipline her, is soooo much more exhausting than getting up every 3 hours for a feeding.

Let that be a lesson to all mothers of one young child who are contemplating a second, and who, for some reason or another, believe that the new baby will be the harder one. No — it is your first who will be the more demanding one as he/she continues to mature and discovers new ways to challenge you.

This is not meant to scare those who are thinking about having another kid. Rather, it is my way of encouraging you, to let you know that nothing really comes as a surprise with second (and subsequent) children. 🙂

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21 Responses to “Walking Without Support”

  1. Mandy says:

    Oh my gosh, Aerin is sooo adorable!!

    I’m so happy that Claire has started toddling around unassisted!! She sounds like she’ll be a handful 😉

  2. Kim says:

    Go Claire! They are both adorable! Wonderful that they are learning more than one language! Your family is beautiful!

  3. Courtney says:

    Yay Claire! My daughter didn’t walk until 15 months as well. But once she started, there was no stopping her!

  4. Nat Nat says:

    My son calls everything Mum Mums too! I love how Claire is so maternal to her little sister. Almost makes me wish to try for another kid sooner than later… almost!

  5. Rachael says:

    Yay Claire! Exciting. I agree with you – within 48 hours of having my 2nd (my older was 4), I realized that newborns are not hard! Toddlers are hard!

  6. Terri says:

    Go Claire!! I let out a squeel when I saw Aerin’s pic. She’s growing so much already.

  7. Allie says:

    Ahhhh! J, you have the most adorable children.

  8. Mina says:

    hooray for claire! and i love that she calls out for her baby sister!

  9. Hooray for walking! HUT is right there with Claire in that he’s now all on his own on two feet. It’s still funny to see him turn a corner and be walking instead of crawling!

  10. Sunny says:

    This picture of Claire is so stinkin cute. I have a picture of me hugging my little brother when he was a baby (we’re 3 yrs apart). I think having a sibling helps teach love and caring early on.

  11. Liz says:

    Thanks for the warning- I also would’ve assumed the newborn would be harder. Definitely want to wait a bit for a 2nd. 😛

  12. kelsey says:

    Yay for Claire!! And I love hearing sweet stories about sister’s love for each other. Especially when they’re so little like Clair and Aerin. It’s just so precious!

  13. You may remember apost image on Gavebook about among ago: I always thought having a new baby would send me over the edge but it turns out it’s the first one that’s going to kill me.

  14. Carly says:

    Congratulations on all of Claire’s milestones! You are doing a great job, mama! 🙂

  15. Annie says:

    You have the cutest little girls EVER. 🙂

  16. Stinkin cute is right! I like your analysis here. The oldest being the most difficult. My parents raised me as the oldest and they always tell me that they were learning with me and got it right with my brother. ha!

    • My mother tells me the same thing too! Additionally, I like to tell my sister that she owes me because I “broke in” our parents — as a result, she was able to get away with sooooo much more than I ever did!

  17. Carol says:

    Omg! A + C are so adorable! I love those initials because that’s me & my sister’s initials too 🙂

  18. Angela says:

    Thank you for addressing this point – “They say that motherhood never really gets any easier, that each new level of development brings with it a unique set of challenges. I wholeheartedly agree, because while I love each new stage of Claire’s life more than the last, it’s also so much harder.”….

    I hear, “It will get easier!” allll the time, and I always want to comment because it’s not that cut and dry. I actually found the earlier months (up to 6 months) a lot easier in many ways. EVERY STAGE has it’s own set of crazy!

    And Claire’s love for Aerin is soo sweet. She sounds such an amazing little girl. 🙂 Noelle is also obsessed with our FlipCam and camera… it’s so hard to capture her on video because right when we bring it out, she reaches for it and completely stops doing what we were trying to capture.

  19. It was the same with my brother’s first two kids. The first one was a right pain in the arse to take care of, even if he was ‘cute’, he was VERY bratty. The second one is less so, but learning from the first 😐

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