Late Bloomer?

Emily has always been what I like to dub a "late bloomer" when it comes to physical milestones. She didn't crawl until 11 months. Instead, she preferred to roll across the room, and she was actually pretty good at it. In fact, I am ashamed to say that at times, it seemed she could roll faster than I could walk.







So...it's no surprise that as her little friends have all gotten brave and
begun to take their first steps, Emily has chosen to continue crawling. At
first, people would ask, "Is she walking yet?" and I'd say no, and they'd
say, "Oh, wait until after she turns a year old...she'll be walking everywhere!" Her first birthday came and went, and no walking. She tricked us a few times; in July, she took a few steps between Dan and I, and we thought, "This is it!" But, those few steps were all we got, and she was back to dusting the floors with her hands and knees. We tried everything...we encouraged her to push just about everything across our floors. She loves doing that, but will not let go of whatever she's pushing. We tried bribing her with snacks (hey, it works with the dog)...nothing. When she went back to daycare, the director said in two weeks she'd be walking. She predicted that after Emily saw all her little friends walking around, she'd want to do it as well. But that was a false hope.




Then this week came, and all of a sudden, some little girl was taking steps! At first I didn't get my hopes up; I'd seen this trick before. But she would walk almost the entire length of the living room between Dan and I with a big goofy smile on her face (pictures will come soon, I promise). I knew we'd mastered the walking. It was done! Tuesday I picked her up from daycare, and I heard a familiar voice saying, "come on Emily, you can walk!" I proudly walked into her room and announced, "She started walking yesterday!" I called Emily, who was busy climbing into other kids' cubbies, over to me. This was our big moment. And of course, she dropped to her knees and did the fastest sprint crawl I've ever seen.