Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Official day of first walking

I have not posted much about my wonderful daughter Elizabeth on here, and do not intend to do so as this is not so much a personal blog, but I will note that Sunday was declared the day of first walking for Elizabeth.

One of the surprises of parenting for me is that events that are usually described as a binary transition are actually continuous transitions with a discretization imposed. At least, this has been the case with Elizabeth with both her "first word" and her walking. Her first word is officially "hi" - we are very friendly here at the Smith household - but it really was a gradual transition from a sound sort of like "hi" to a more recognizable word "hi". She did not just one day go from babbling to clearly saying "hi", which is what I had expected. Similarly with walking. First she would take one or two steps if someone was waiting to catch her, then three of four, then five or six. Sunday is the day of first walking officially because it was the first day she would proceed without anyone directly in her path and not too far away waiting to catch her.

The other main surprise of parenting has been the extent of technological progress in diapers. It is simply amazing how much liquid they can hold and still feel dry to the touch.