walking

little miss Lovely is walking and its ADORABLE.  She's done a step or two for the past few weeks but last Friday she crossed the room, taking several steps (while squealing in excitement) to go to our friend's dog.  Upon her arrival, she threw herself a tthe dog, buried her face in her thick fur and giggled and patted and snuggled.  The dog was amazingly patient and put it with it.

And then she wouldn't walk again.  We tried several times over the next two days but she would try a few steps and then collapse to her knees and scurry away crawling.  Until we were visiting a different friend who also happen to have a dog.  It was almost an exact repeat of happy squealing and frantic, high stepping, lumbering walk to throw herself at the dog and bury herself in the thick fur.

Apparently she likes dogs.

Two more days passed with no walking (once again).  But then I bribed her with cookies and she's been walking ever since.  Her big sisters are bursting with pride every time but unfortunately have taken this as invitation to "help" her too often.  They pick her up, pulling her to her feet or pick her up and drag her across the room to make her practice walking.  But she's my happy go-luck girl and generally puts up with it, slinking down out of their arms and crawling away.  Crawling is still faster but her lilting walk makes me melt.