Evan can walk!!!!!

Evan has been on the verge of walking for awhile now, and with some coaxing on his birthday, he took one pseudo step. He's maybe done this once or twice since then, but has been mainly resolute to walk only when hanging on tightly to one of us. Whenever we gave him encouragement to stand or walk on his own, he would plop his bottom right down on the floor. As long as he could hold onto us, Evan wanted to walk endlessly, though, and so Mark and I have been walking with Evan hour after hour for the last month at least. The last week he has been especially interested in holding on with only one hand, and his sense of balance has definitely improved.

Yesterday I renewed my encouragement for him to stand on his feet, and he did so successfully for several seconds a few times. The main difference was that he actually liked doing this! Any other time I would encourage him he had no interest (bum on the floor).

Tonight, right before bed, Mark and I decided to see if we could get him to take another step. We sat about 3 feet apart, and I stood Evan up and encouraged him to walk to Daddy. He did (2 steps), and he loved it! Then he tried again, and was again successful. The next time round, he just kept going, doing 7 or 8 steps before being stopped by some furniture. We were amazed! This video was the 5th try, walking from Daddy to Mommy:

Evan just wanted to keep walking, and after 15 or 20 minutes, he was walking 9 or 10 feet, and he could stop in a standing position and gently bring himself to a sitting position without falling over.

We are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo proud! Hooray for Evan!!!!!!!!!!!

We put him to bed after that, and instead his usual bedtime routine of the normal high energy kicking followed by suddenly falling asleep, he was still and quiet, but did not fall asleep for a long time. We could tell he was thinking about what just happened, and processing what it meant.

Our lives just changed drastically...we can sense it...