This week my wife and I both got an email. It was one of the greatest messages I've ever gotten in my entire life. It was from Tess's teacher. This is what it said:
So I'm pleased to announce that our girl is a walker. Officially. Finally! At age five.
She's been toying with the idea for weeks, and has taken one or two steps here and there. Always in her braces. And never for long without dropping to the floor. She's seemingly made a point of only doing it when I'm not in the room.
T walking at school the other day, recorded by her teacher. She might as well be giving the finger to the camera, as if to say, "Don't get your hopes up, Dad--I won't be doing this at home."
She picked a great time to start walking. It's been hard lately. She's heavy. I have a torn ACL and it's not great, carrying her on snow and ice through her school's parking lot. It would be seriously kick-ass if she started walking regularly.
Now, thinking about how she's been these past few weeks, it all makes sense. You see, when she's about to have a breakthrough, like when she was about to crawl for the first time, or when she was going to start signing to us, she's stayed up all night, several nights in a row. That's how she rolls. And that's what we've seen in recent, curse-laden, slumberless nights. We're trying to sleep, and for hours she's bleating from her room like an injured goat. It's as if she's too excited to waste time sleeping.
We're pretty damn excited too. We can only hope that her steps continue.