walk it out

so, boychild is a walker. he's been flirting with the idea for about a month now, taking steps when forced, but not really all that willing unless someone was really cheering him on. and then, one day, he found one his favorite things in a suitcase: toothbrushes. anything that is long and thin (think stick or sword) is his favorite item. he will grab on to these things and keep them for hours at a time. well, this time, he had two. and they were making it hard to crawl. so he tried walking. and guess what? he could walk AND hold on to his toothbrushes and that meant he could easily make it to a safe hiding spot and hold those toothbrushes and chew on those toothbrushes for as long as he wanted. sadly for him, he's not all that sneaky. so i saw the whole thing. which meant that he didn't get to sit in a corner and suck the remnants of my toothpaste off my toothbrush. it meant that i gently took them away and attempted to replace them with a wooden spoon. and as i walked away, it meant that he followed me bi-ped style with tears in his eyes.

it is ridiculous how proud i feel when i see him walk. i'm like one of those moms who gets on her blog and says the same things over and over again about how great her kids are.

oh my gosh. i am one of those moms.

how embarrassing.

well, in the spirit of being one of those moms, let me just move right in to the typical ramblings of a proud mother:

seeing him walk is amazing. seeing him walk to the part of the room where his blankee is, pick it up and stumble away can almost take my breath away. i mean, that used to be in my womb. MY WOMB!! and now look at him: he's sneaking off into corners with my toothbrush, he's using a spoon with such abandon that nothing actually makes it to his mouth, but instead it's on the floor. and now, we have ants. again. and i hate ants.

now that he's a full-fledged walker (the spanish branch missionaries call him "zombie"), things are not safe. before we were baby-proof, but now we need to be toddler-proof. and i just want to throw my hands in the air and shout, but i just DID the baby-proofing! will you just slow down and let me do something else other than fight to keep you alive in your own bedroom?

and now, because of this new found freedom, my 50mm lens, which you might recall is my absolute favorite lens, has been snapped. because someone pulled a whole pile of books off of a side table and the camera was on top of the books and NOW i have no 50mm lens. did i mention it was my favorite? i did? well, did i also mention that i just started really taking photography seriously and part of that is taking pictures of other people and that lens was sort of vital to that whole cause? how about the fact that when it comes to photography, i have a budget of ZERO dollars.

so i did what any desperate would-be photographer does: i packed up any and all photography equipment i don't use, went to my two favorite photography stores, one of which is a guy who can fix almost anything and sells a lot of secondhand stuff and i worked a deal.

but i digress. back to the whole mom thing.

have you ever seen anything so cute in all your life?