The Drunk Walk

Giving toddlers a reason to
walk since 1990.  

Xander took his first step two days before his first birthday. I was holding a Seinfeld DVD that he wanted (such good taste already, right?), and he forgot to hold onto the bed as he reached for it.

It's a little over a month later and we've had to reconfigure the house. We have many surfaces in our small dwelling, the better to stack books and soda cans and iPods. He can now get to the lower level surfaces: coffee tables, end tables, corner cabinets and shelves. One shelf is restocked at least five times a day with his Boynton board books that end up on the hallway floor every couple hours. He also ends up in the kitchen cupboards. Our Tupperware cabinet has never seen such disarray.

Well, are you?

So we've had to move things around. Hide our books. Block access to the Christmas tree. We bought a fancy "look ma, no hands" gate for the basement staircase. (We could have just put the actual door back on the hinges at the top of the stairs, but it's just fine out in the garage behind stacks of boxes.)

Clearly, he's learned that there's a whole new world up there just above his head. Crawling is so passe, so...demeaning. He'll do it, but that's only because he's still in the drunk walk stage. His walk is so tentative, so awkward that he looks like he's two steps from a face plant. And that's not much of an exaggeration. He really does that. Face plant. And often.

He'll trip over the odd book or block, but he'll also lose his balance stepping onto the rug or smooshing the goldfish cracker he dropped from his high chair or, really, over nothing. Sometimes he'll use that whiny moan while pulling at my legs whether I'm sitting or standing then get tripped up on my toe or shoelace and be suddenly head over heels. What's amazing is that the drunk walk doesn't end in more tears. He's learned to catch himself so he'll just sit with a hard bump onto the wood or tile floor, or if he's falling forward he puts his arms out in time. Unless he slips. Then there's a definite skull crack. And most often, he turns over and gets back up and moves on with his life. The drunk walk is relatively painless.

Just...ouch.

Now consider this: He stands up like a big kid. Most toddlers get on their hands and knees, and with the butt up in the air, they stand by pushing off their two hands. They know the perfect Downward Dog. Not Xander. He kneels, then pulls one knee up with the foot on the floor. With the strength of that one foot, he stands. How does he have such balance that he can stand from one leg, but he stumbles around the house like he's had too much spiked egg nog?

Back in the day, they wore
revealing shorts to show off
their muscled thighs.

His physical therapist (remember he was a little preemie not so long ago) says that she's only seen a one-year-old stand up like that twice in her career. He's not supposed to do that until he's three. He's going to have Maradona thighs, I just know it. (That's Diego Maradona, not Madonna, in case you misread that.)

This week he's taken to pulling on his mother's hand and walking her into his bedroom where we've put an old TV with a built-in VCR. We ended up with some Baby Einstein videos, among others that I won't watch, but Xander loves them. (Too bad we don't have Seinfeld on VHS, right?) He doesn't really need his mom with him, but it's a hoot to watch him turn the TV on and put a video in. Good thing it starts the video automatically. He doesn't know Play from Rewind, but he will soon enough. He won't need us at all.

And yes, there's a TV in his bedroom. You got something to say about that?