These Feet Were Made For Walking...

The day before Pabbi arrived in Ghana, to pick us up and bring us home, the most amazing thing happened.

Sufi took his

First - without assistance - Steps!

He was about four steps from me and took them before he fell into my arms; the rest of us who witnessed these steps stared in shock and awe. It was so unexpected and so out of the blue. It was so sad that Pabbi missed his first steps

by a day.

But that seemed to be the end of the walking.

He insisted on crawling.

He would pull himself up and walk as long as he was holding onto something; he would even freestand, but walking by himself seemed to be the one time only.

Sufi just thought it was funny whenever we tried to practice walking with him, but he would just fall into a laughing heap on the floor. For a few weeks, he would take anywhere from 2-4 steps at random moments, but if anyone looked his way, he would get shy and throw himself into a giggling heap on the floor. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to wait until HE was ready. I fugured it would be an overnight event!!!

Then this last weekend we went to the store to get a baby gate to help contain our enthusiastic crawler. We pulled a smaller gate down and were a little worried that Sufi could flip himself over it. So we stood him up next to the gate to measure him. After, our assesment, I left Sufi holding onto my pants, as Pabbi and I talked. At one point, I realized Sufi had let go. I looked down expecting to see him crawling off...instead we all stood dumbfounded as we saw this:

(This is a re-enactment of what we saw, we were too dumbfounded to grab the camera fast enough.)

Then he grabbed an item off the lowest shelf and did this...
(this is not a reenactment, we actually grabbed the camera by this point)

What was the item he grabbed:

A PAIR OF SHOES!

This boy knows what he wants and needs for his future!

Over the next several days he started doing laps around the house
(don't mind the boxes and bags - again we are in temporary living quarters - ergo "living out of boxes").

What did he grab there at the end...

yes, his booster seat.

This baby LOVES his food!!!

And HIS WALKING!!!

Looks like we are going to need more than the one baby gate!

He just will not be contained!

Way to Go SUFI!!!