Leap Of Faith

Hurrying to get to work, I put the bloggerette down by standing her against the couch next to Kelly, who was sitting on the floor nearby. I turned for a second to scan around for my coat, when Kelly suddenly exclaimed "Tony! She just walked over to me!"

"Wha? No way!" Then Kelly faced her the other way, and sure enough, an excited bloggerette took three more freestanding steps back to the couch! We both erupted in praise and yays, and like a dummy I even applauded instinctively, flush with pride.

She sensed the excitement and beamed up at us, tightly holding on to the cushion and swaying.

We should have left it at that, and allowed the little girl a few minutes to take in what just happened, to contemplate her successful leap of faith in her new abilities.

But unfortunately, Kelly and I swooped in like a pack of excited little league coaches; pointing and prodding the bloggerette in every direction, and cojoling her to "Come this way! Go to daddy! Go to Mommy!"...way too enthusiastically and probably for way too many minutes.

But try as we might, she wouldn't attempt it again, always reverting to the ol' crawl. Maybe we over did it, I ruminated. Maybe she refused to perform like a trained seal. Aye, we probably set her back in the realm of walking for months, if walking means being poked and prodded endlessly as reward for the attempt. Thus a small lesson in overparenting was learned.

But, perhaps sensing the dejection of ourl folly she finally decided to dole out just one more step, kind of a lunge actually, as a sop to placate her two rabid fans...



All was good. We'll try it again later, when she's ready.