Evie is Walking!

Evie just took her very first unassisted steps! And, happily enough, Todd and I were both home to witness it; she's been so close for weeks and I've been terrified that I'd be at work and miss the whole thing. In fact, every time I was home, I'd taken to putting her a few feet in front of me and coaxing her towards me, hoping that I could spur her into taking her first steps. It never worked until tonight; she'd always plop down and crawl to me instead. Tonight, though, I'd just gotten home (hence my lovely getup) and shown Todd a couple of pictures I'd taken this afternoon of the car parked next to me. (Todd hates Smart cars. He thinks they're stupid looking, so I thought he'd get a kick out of this one. Check out the eyelashes on the headlights!)

I hadn't been home very long when a thunderstorm kicked up outside. It wasn't bothering us too much (Evie didn't even notice the flashes of lightning or crashes of thunder) until the wind suddenly blew the front door open. I closed it tight and then sat down on the floor so I could pick up Evie's things that she'd scattered all over the living room. She'd crawled over to see what I was doing, so I sort of halfheartedly placed her on her feet and asked her to "Come to Mommy!" I wasn't actually expecting anything to happen, so I was thrilled when she actually shuffled forward a few steps! Todd had looked up as I stood her up, so he saw the whole thing too. I excitedly asked him if this counted as her walking so I could put the date into her baby book. He looked dubious, so I tried it again. And it worked! What's more, since I had just shown Todd those pictures from this afternoon, the camera was sitting right at his elbow and, miracle of miracles, it had fresh batteries and enough memory to capture the entire blessed event! We never have the camera on hand when Evie does something special for the first time! So I immediately called my mom, even though it was late, to tell her the happy news. And now, I proudly present Evie's first solo baby steps!

(Ignore me freaking out in the background. I've been waiting for this for what feels like ages, and I was a little beside myself that I actually got to witness it!)