Walkie, Talkie

Well, she's done it.

I've been reluctant to make the big statement in the past few days ("were those really independent steps, or did she just stumble forward?") but I can finally announce that Jessica walked for the first time tonight. Not just "for the first time, tonight", but "for the first time tonight". (I think "tonight, for the first time" might have been the grammatically correct, less-ambiguous way of saying what I meant to say!).

Yep - Jessica was holding onto the couch with one hand, looked out at Mel who was sitting in the middle of the room, and then took three very independent steps out to meet her! It's all tres exciting! (And I'm thankful that she waited until I got home from Brisbane). Not sure that she's altogether ready to give up her crawling just yet - it's quite a skill - but I guess we'll see her walk a few more steps each day or so. No, the camera wasn't rolling, but I'll try to capture and post something by the weekend.

While Jessica may be new to the "walkie", she's now quite a veteran of the "talkie": she is extremely vocal, and has long, animated, serious, and even stern conversations with us all the time. She'll quite often wake up after a long sleep and start telling us long stories full of emphasis and excitement, peppered with short segments of sing-song whispering. At the moment she likes launching out at your ribcage with her fingers outstretched, excitedly gasping "ticka-ticka-tickle", or waving and saying "Seeya Dad" when I leave for work. And her latest is to respond to, "Are you sleepy, Jessica?" or "Does Jessica need to go to bed?" by very pointedly shaking her head from side to side three or four times. I thought at first that she had just picked up on the tone of voice or inflection when we would pose a question, but then she heard the word 'sleep' among a normal conversation and started shaking her head aswell! If she's already worked that out, we're in real trouble.

Brisbane was a good trip, although it stirred up a host of problems that some people (eg. my boss, for some reason) were hoping to keep hidden, and will therefore mean that a lot of further trips are likely in the near future. The project team said they'll even find me a nicer place to stay next time, although I have to admit the Motor Inn was not too bad (it didn't smell of rotten carpet anyway). I guess I don't mind travelling entirely, but I really do miss the time with M & J. And I'm also very conscious of just how much can happen in only a few days at the moment: at this rate the next milestone I miss may well be Jessica learning to drive!

Matt

(BTW, have I told you how much I hate Current Affairs television in Australia? Tonight's feature story was about "Queensland's Worst Serial Water Waster", who had been dobbed-in by his neighbour at the caravan park for having long showers in the facilities block. The neighbour would sit in his caravan with a clipboard and log the arrival and departure times each day. So the current affairs journalist fitted a hidden camera in the shower block to catch the man showering for too long (with commentary), before confronting the man with the usual but highly ironic "have you no shame?" approach. It's hard to go past the hidden camera as my favourite piece of shlock journalism, or perhaps the tedious coaxing of an obviously ambivalent passer-by into agreeing that long showers were shameful, but I think I most loved the last comment of the complainant neighbour. Speaking about the man who took too long in the shower (and the journo was at pains to remind us that, if you took a shower for the same length, and you did that twice a day, you could fill a swimming pool...ummm....in just under a month): "He's just lucky I'm not the Prime Minister, or I'd grab a gun and I'd shoot him. It's treason - that's what it is!". Priceless.

Jessica's Last Stand?

I'm off to Brisbane for work tomorrow, staying up there until the weekend.

In fact, I'm up at 3:30 (yes, a.m.!) to catch the 'plane. From what I can tell, the motel I'm staying in resembles a 1960 toilet block (in both form and fragrance), and is located on a highway in the middle of an industrial area (in fact, the website lists "close to industrial estates" as one of it's two highlights).

The early flight I can handle, and the dodgy motel too, but the real issue is that there's every chance I'll miss Jessica's first steps while I'm away. D'Oh!!!!

Jessica has been increasingly confident with her cruising around, and will also stand for a couple of minutes at a time (often dancing away to the music on TV). She gets to her feet in 2 seconds flat, gives herself a round of applause for being so clever (we of course join in), before sitting down and repeating the process many times over. Her assisted walking really just consists of the slightest hold on your little finger, and I think she'll very soon realise that she doesn't need even that. So it's a real possibility that by the time I get back she'll have already taken her first totally-independent steps.

Maybe I can take her with me?