Look mom, no hands

Yesterday Owen began experimenting with free-standing for several seconds at a time. There is something exhilarating to me about watching him take this tentative step toward becoming an independent biped like the rest of us. There he stands, legs bowed and tottering, arms out, grinning and laughing at his new skill before he teeters and totters and plops down to the floor. Maybe it’s because Will and I just read a passage in E.B. White’s Trumpet of the Swan in which the protagonist cygnet, Louis, and his siblings take their first flight or maybe it’s because Owen also picked up the flapping-arms baby sign for bird this weekend – but I keep thinking of Owen as my little bird, about to take flight, as I watch him work toward walking. Sure it takes humans about 12 months longer than the average bird to acquire mobility skills much less graceful and glorious than flight, but it’s so fun to watch all the same.