What? It's only set to stun silly. No worries.

Walking back from your house, walking on the womb...

Not exactly how The Police song goes, but for Beatrice it's appropriate in the fact that she was walking sans cruising at 10-11 months and running half-marathons at 13 months.

How cool is that.

But crawling and pulling herself up? Been a fits-and-starts no-go until recently and now she's finally friggin' doing it!

Woot! Go Bea Go!

Every parent sweats over stuff like this and we were no exception. Bea hit all her other milestones in the normal range and others told us that some babies walk before they crawl. (She's signs and understands particle physics you know.)

So Mama worked with her and I encouraged her and even Chelsea our 300-year-old cat cheered her on and on--

Only for her to collapse in an overdramatic heap of baby whine, face buried in arms, as if to say (in an English accent):

"Oh, Mother -- oh, Father -- I am misery -- please let me lay here..."

That's a window to adolescence I don't need to see at 17 months.

*sigh*

Then in the past few weeks she started the on-all-fours rise and creep then collapse. Baby steps mind you.

But she's making crawling progress every day, pulling herself up, twirling around, discussing the subtleties of curling, telling post-feminist Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi jokes, and participating Elmo and Foofa poetry slams.

She's so amazing!

And yesterday she just started climbing the stairs. Yes, the stairs. Go Bea Go!

Holy moly! That's both exciting and frightening. Don't worry, we're installing the electric super-sonic force-field fence from Lost at the base of our stairs tonight.

What? It's only set to stun silly. No worries.