Sam in Mall

The other night we took Sam to the mall for the first time since he started walking 3 months ago. His legs pumped wildly in the air before he even touched the ground. The second his toes brushed the floor, he lurched forward at full speed down the corridor. Everyone seemed to be coming the opposite direction, so he looked like a little salmon swimming upstream, swatting away adult legs and weaving with great determination.

We chased after him with the stroller as fast as we could, until we had done two full laps of the mall. He didn't even veer off into any store. The only time he paused was on the second level at the glass wall overlooking the lower level. He watched people below and climbing the stairs with intense curiosity. When we turned him around, he started walking again with an enormous sense of purpose. He never even looked behind to check if we were in sight!

It was so hilarious to just watch him that we took him to another mall with a playground a few nights later. The play area was crowded with older kids. We set Sam down near the edge and he belted out, "daaaa!" in a very authoritative way. Then he held aloft one finger and began to walk at top speed. He did lap after lap of the play area, weaving around kids and play things in order to accomplish his goal of forward movement, repeatedly shouting "daaaa." Once an older boy running knocked him flat on his face and that shocked him into tears. But soon he was back to walking and shouting to everyone.