Since Ted was born, his life, and that of his parents, has been all about firsts. First smile, first babble, first tooth, first word… Well, you get the idea. There are LOTS of firsts. I witnessed Ted accomplish one of his “firsts” today and it made me quite the proud papa.

But before I get to that, y’all know that Ted is walking now, right? Didn’t happen like on TV though. If Ted’s life were a sitcom, he would have been sitting on the floor, a lump of flesh and bones, and then in a flash he would get up and walk across the room having never so much as stood up on his own before. That’s not what happened. It’s a gradual process, like most of his firsts are. Yeah, who knew?

He’s been working on this for a long time. The crawling thing is old hat. From crawling, he started doing a weird, one-leg-up-and-bent sort of slide across the floor. Ted’s mom was right when she said it kinda looks like part of a dance routine from Fiddler on the Roof. This was all about practicality for Ted as it allowed him to “crawl” while still holding something in one of his hands. Cruising (that’s walking around while holding on to furniture, walls, or any other fixed object for those of you not up-to-speed on the toddler parenting lingo) has been the norm for several weeks now. And more recently he’s been experimenting with letting go of the fixed objects and free-walking for at least a few steps out in the middle of a room. Yeah, I know, I’m screwed.

So, back to my proud dad moment of today. Sure, walking is great. And hearing him call me “dada” or “daddy” makes me smile every time. But what he did today was extra special. I mean, I knew it was going to happen eventually, but I had no idea he’d pick up on such a specialized skill so early on in his boyhood. We were outside and he was crawling/walking around with a little stick that he found. And do you know what he was doing with that stick? He was poking things. That’s right. My 14-month old son is so smart, he already knows what sticks are for. He was poking leaves, small clumps of dirt, bugs, everything! Nearly brought a tear to my eye.