To Stand, Perchance to Walk

Lately all Coco wants to do is stand. Let's rephrase that because that's putting it very lightly. Lately, Coco is wholly invested in the business of standing and learning to walk. She spends every waking minute pulling up on bookshelves, ottomans, chairs, the couch, my legs. Then she practices taking steps up and down, more recently maybe a few to the side, and then comes the big work of getting back down to the ground, only to go up again and repeat the process. What a lot of work it is for a baby!

Watching her progress is absolutely incredible because everyday her movement is more refined, she's more stable and she's that much closer to walking. It is absolutely magical to see happening before my eyes. The only problem is that she's literally devoting every ounce of energy she has to these tasks. When it's bedtime and she is visibly tired (and crying with fatigue!) she keeps at it, in our bed, pulling up on the headboard until she physically can no longer stand. It isn't over until she tries to pull up, but can only make it halfway because she's out of energy, and then she drops onto my pillow, buries her face in it and cries. :( It didn't even cross my mind when we picked out our bed that it is the perfect, irresistible height for a baby to pull up on. 

So I find myself soothing her and reminding her that Rome wasn't built in a day, but those hard-wired developmental surges don't listen to reason. Nothing I do can distract her from the big work of learning to walk, even when she's half asleep.