Six Months and Standing

Six days after her six-month birthday, on May 8, Taylor decided to stand up—and I was lucky enough to see it. I had just walked back into the room to find her fully awake in her crib, pulling up on the upper crib rail with both hands, chest raised off the surface of the mattress. She had been doing this regularly, but this time she pulled her chest up high enough to be able to inch her feet under her body and place them, step by unsteady step, one in front of the other until she was in a standing position, hands supporting her on the crib rail. She smiled in that unconscious, gleeful way that only babies and young children are capable of smiling. My words to her at the time: "You just did that! You just stood up!" And we laughed together at her remarkable accomplishment.

A few weeks later, on May 26, I took Taylor on her first trip—a visit to see her new cousin Max and her Aunty Karen and Uncle Dave in Denver, Colorado. Taylor read the manual in advance and followed the recommended procedures: nurse on take-off, sleep, wake upon landing. Dave and Karen live in a sweet little bungalow in The Highlands area of the city. Unlike our mostly carpeted home in Austin, Dave and Karen's place has hardwood floors. An hour or so after our a.m. arrival, I put Taylor down to, presumably, scoot her way along the hardwoods in pursuit of a toy. As I began to look away from her for a moment, my head quickly snapped back in a double-take. On contact, Taylor had started crawling—a full and complete, all-fours crawl. No more launching forward for our little one. She had found a new means of getting around. And we hadn't even unpacked yet.