One small step for Liam; one giant leap for Mommy

Liam is expressing his freedom! He walks, no runs, everywhere! Today I probably was the most "hands off" I have been since we have been here. For the most part, he is perfectly steady on his feet. He loves to explore his surroundings. He would walk and walk as far as he could if there were space.



In the morning he walked up and down our sidewalk and front yard for a couple hours. He watched ants crawling, picked up leaves, and mooed at the cows. The kids in the neighborhood were out playing and he tried to keep up. They were running while rolling a tire. It reminded me of the movie Pollyanna where the little boys did that for fun. The kids around here have to make games out of whatever they find. The boys would run past Liam and he would take off as fast as he could. It was cute, but he never did catch up!


At our house, you have to step up on our porch to reach our front door. Liam was playing with my keys and wanted to put the keys in the door. He tried to strrreeetch his arms to reach from the sidewalk, but soon determined he would have to learn to tackle the step to reach the front door.



Within minutes he was climbing up the step no problem. The problem came when I turned my head for ONE SECOND and he tried to go down the step. Ooopsie! He fell. He was not hurt, and did not cry. In fact he kept wanting to do it again and again.

Here comes the giant leap for Mommy. This whole playing outside thing makes me nervous! He falls, he gets dirty, he might pick up a bug and try to eat it. I was expressing these concerns to Logan over lunch. He laughed and shrugged and basically said "get used to it. Liam is going to get a lot dirtier than he gets right now." Rick and Jan have many stories of Logan getting in trouble, getting dirty, and I'm sure eating a bug or two.


Later on in the evening, the three of us took a walk to the "upper compound" where all the Missionaries live. This way Liam could run and jump and play with his friends. The kids and dads were just wrapping up an all out war with water balloons and buckets of water. I have to admit I was slightly glad we missed it. What if Liam slipped and fell?

Wellllllll, fall he did. The sidewalk was soaking wet of course. He was just walking along and boom! We heard the sound of his little face hit the sidewalk. He cried immediately, and yes I did rush to pick him up. Even Daddy was a little concerned! We got some ice to put on his swelling forehead. Actually we were lucky if the ice stayed on there a full 3 seconds. Mostly the cold bag was just a new toy for Liam.


We gave him some children's ibuprophen, milk, lots of kisses, some dinner and put him to bed. He is fine. A little red and swollen on his forehead and nose, but fine. Logan again reminded me that this is the first of many. Who knew a tiny little 12 month old step could be such a giant leap for a Mommy's heart?