Baby Steps are Amazing, Aren't They?

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No Babies in This House

From the day the idea of a baby is just a gleam in your eye, you know there is going to be something magical about that learning to walk thing. If you are a 1^st time parent, you don't think much about what comes after. You sorta think you know, so you batten down the hatches with cabinet latches and outlet covers. Being the conscientious folks you are, you did that about 15 minutes after the stick turned blue or got a plus sign – or whatever it does these days – didn't ya?

So Much Time...So Many Possibilities!

Ignorance is bliss when you have no idea how many mad dashes you are going to make to throw yourself between that tettering-tottering-trying-to- walk bundle of joy and certain destruction. Sometimes you gonna have to choose whether it is Grammaw's 150-year-old Spode china or that baby you save. Nah, just kidding. I know you'll choose the baby. Till about kid #3. You know...the one you don't even wipe the passy off for when it rolls around on the floor for a couple of hours? Yep, that's the one. You don't know it now, but you'll choose the antique over personal injury by the time you invoke the '3 second rule' re all things hygienic.

Admit it! You rejoice over every milestone. You video the first smile even tho' medical science has hollered far and wide that it is 'just gas' those 1^st few weeks. You watch that bobble head turn into a little person that can track you with a vengeance as you move around the bouncy thing...whatever they call those these days. You laugh over the drool till you realize all the juice signals that emerging teeth are gonna mess with your sleep for months on end. But nothing, no nothing, is as anticipated as those first few golden steps.

Baby Pictures: His Worst Nightmare

What with cell phones, flip cameras, and Ipod's with video capabilities, I guess no baby gets to take those first few steps in the privacy of his own space these days. Nope. More and more, I guess those steps are caught and loaded up to Utube for posterity. And, bribery during the teen years.

You know it's coming weeks ahead most of the time. Let's face it: little kids are fraidy cats. They want to, oh do they want to! Yet, there is something about that looming independence which transfixes them. In fact, for a while, it keeps most of them from boldly going where their eyes have traveled all those months. They've been sitting around watching and planning the kinds of havoc they'll wreck when they have 2 free hands and are on the move with their knees in the upright and locked position.

Look Mom! No Hands!

In our house, we had one whose pre-walking jitters left him helpless with fits of giggles. My dad was sneaky. They'd keep him every once in a while whereupon Dad and Mom would institute the 'walking lessons'. They'd stand him up in a corner were he'd feel secure and back up waiting for him to head to them. Knowing the gig he was being offered, he'd just laugh till he turned blue and fell over. Eventually he'd take a few steps while giggling and then fall over. Finally, he took 12 steps after which he sat down and refused to walk without a hand to hold for the next 2 months. Thankfully, he got over that since I have no plans to accompany him to Australia on business next month!

I Bet I Could Make This Thing Fly!

The other boy....he never had to throw caution to the wind because I don't think he ever had any. We used to call him 'Houdini'. I'll spare you most of the gory details. Before he was 2, he had used Lemon Pledge as fruit juice and tried to launch himself off the dining room table via the chandelier. I blame the latter on John Glenn, the astronaut. His flirt with space travel occurred the day Astronaut Glenn lifted off for a second jaunt up into space. This kid was a really calm baby who could sit and play quietly for an hour as soon as you could prop him up. Yea, I shoulda known trouble was coming. He had a whole lot of time to look around and plot things like the trajectory from the dining room table once he could get a hold of that light fixture.

Baby steps don't stop when that little kid has outrun you in the shopping mall or zipped out the front door with no diaper on. Nope. We keep taking baby steps our entire lives. We just don't celebrate it as we get older. Those around us don't watch and wait for us to conquer scary things baby step by baby step so that they can clap and video the event. Kinda sad, huh?

What am I Going to be When I Grow Up?

If you've been brave enough to sign on and follow my journey since May, you may not have even noticed. So, whip out the cameras and video equipment and get ready to celebrate! While you guys have been off doing what you do and then checking back in from time to time, I've been taking baby steps. I'm just as 'a-skeert' as those giggling babies who know walking is coming but aren't quite ready to take off yet. I guess mostly I'm afraid cause: 1) that's what I do and 2) I'm not sure where I'm headed. But, I can look behind me and see how far I've come since August of 2010.

You know what? Baby steps are pretty amazing. You don't think about how they add up. You miss it because you are so busy concentrating on the individual little steps. Once walking is 2^nd nature, you've moved on to ooh-ing and ahh-ing over other things and fail to notice the ground you've covered with those ground breaking baby steps.

Me? A Fraidy Cat?

Tonight, I wanna thank you. I do that a lot, but tonight it just seems appropriate to stop and mark the date. Today, I looked behind and saw how far I've come and was amazed when I realized I had been busy taking tiny baby steps since March. You have been a big part of that process. I hope it has been worth the trip. Tomorrow, we will look at how far I've come and where I hope to head. Don't wanna miss that now, do ya?

Phillipians 3:13, 14

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.