Motor Monday-And we have walkers!!

Well, I have a post already started about pulling to stand and cruising, but have been struggling to get pictures and videos to go with it. And this one just can't wait!  We now have walkers!! Well, to be fair, Avery has been taking steps since October 7th, but she really stepped it up a level today and Ellie is really starting to take off too.

 Isaiah has been working really hard on standing and is getting pretty good at it.  Check out this face when he was standing in the grass a couple weeks ago. He's so proud of himself!

He has taken a step or two, but usually it looks more like this video. In this video you can see him standing by himself and preparing to take a step.  Watch how he shifts his weight forward onto his toes a couple of times and shifts his hips sideways just a bit before he actually takes a step.  Babies have to learn to shift their weight forward and also to the side to be able to lift a foot. That weight shift is so tricky!

Here's one where he only gets the forward weight shift.  Little dude is trying so hard!  He'll get it, but sometimes the process is just exhausting as you can see!

Here's a video of Avery the first day she took steps by herself.

You can see in this video that walking is basically just controlled falling (as opposed to Isaiah just falling).  She shifts her weight, takes a few steps and just dives into me. And that is pretty typical for kids, who are more confident trying something new and different going towards their mom or dad because they know someone will catch them.  Once she is in motion she just keeps going until she falls, never able to regain her balance.

 For comparison, here's Ellie walking tonight before bed.  She took her first step two weeks ago and until today has only taken about 4 steps at a time. In this video, the first time she takes more steps than Avery in the video above, but it still looks fairly similar in that she is just going straight & dives at the end, but in the second one you can see her catch her balance a couple of times before continuing on.

 I think today is the day that Avery crossed over into being "a walker." She has been taking steps to us for close to a month now, but now she will just take off walking whenever she feels like it!  And tonight she pushed herself up to stand all by herself in the middle of the room.  Check this girl out!

Don't get me wrong, she still crawls the majority of the time because it is so much faster for her right now, but you can tell she is really working to master this walking business.  Notice how in the video above she is now able to turn while she is walking!  New walkers are so fun to watch because you can practically see the learning happening.  This last video is a silly one because it is way too fast (it's a timelapse), but it gives you a quick glimpse of the amount of persistence Avery has when it comes to learning a new skill.  Tonight was the first time she pushed up to stand and in this video she did it like six times in a row before she finally got it and took off walking.