Myron has been walking unassisted for a few weeks now. He has had the skills to do it for longer, but he either didn’t realize it or didn’t fully trust it. He still wanted one of us to hold his hands while he walked, but over time, he put less and less weight on them and was basically just walking on his own while holding our hands as a safety net. Em likes to tell the story of how she learned to ride a bike by observing other people ride. She didn’t try it until she had observed it well enough to know how to ride without falling. One evening, Myron was walking while using a large (almost Myron-sized) exercise ball as a support, and it started to roll away from him. He walked a couple of steps to catch up to it and then slapped both hands down on it. He repeated this a few times, and then Em and I rolled the ball to each other and let Myron walk to it – a few more steps this time. Eventually, Em nudged the ball across the living room, and Myron walked the room to it.
He still likes to walk with his hands up though. I think he does this so that his hands are always ready to break a fall before his face does. Em thinks it is his way of balancing.

He is also doing a lot of mimicking these days. One of his favorite things to do is hold up objects to his cheek as if they are telephones. We started doing this with bananas at breakfast, and he now does it with combs, ring toys, remote controls, toy trucks, and an actual old iPhone. Sometimes he will pretend to have a conversation by saying “blarbety blarbety, bye!” Once in daycare, his class played with toy phones, and he knew just what to do.

The other day, Myron and Em watched some birds at the bird feeder, and for a few minutes, Myron laughed while shaking his head like a bird eating.

We walked around at an Audubon Society preserve last weekend. Myron said “blub blub” to some big fish.

And he (kind of) measured his wingspan.

The best part though, was that at the end of this boardwalk looking over the bay, there was a nice wide area to push around his own stroller and watch the wheels do their wheel thing.