Progress toward walking

Last month Mira made great progress with her balance. She will now occasionally let go of all stabilizing implements while standing and just stand on her own for a few seconds. Also, she began to walk while holding someone's hands.

Now she's a pro at assisted walking like that. And she LOVES it. So much that she almost always cries when you stop. As a result, it's pretty rare for me to do it with her because I don't want to put up with the complaining that inevitably follows. (Is that a bad thing to do? Keep your children from doing things they love just because you know they will complain when it's over? Anyway, back on topic...)

I've tried to get her to use a walker. We have this toy car that converts into a push-along, like a stroller or a cart. But she won't use it. Every time I position her behind it she just sits down. I think she got turned off to it early on when I let her try it and a time or two she wound up face down on the floor. Whoops. I just hope that doesn't translate into an irrational fear of pushing grocery carts later in life.

Anyway, I'm not in any real rush for her to start walking. Kinda like how I felt about her starting to crawl: the new mobility will only lead to more trouble-making, so there's no need to push her into it. She'll learn in her own time. Though I can tell that she is really starting to *want* to do it. A month or so ago, she was perfectly content with her crawl speed, which is quite fast, but now it seems she is starting to want more. So I'm sure she'll be walking pretty soon. Hopefully I can catch some of those first steps on video!