He Thinks He Can Walk

After seeing Roan "walk" Melinda said to me, "he thinks he can walk. Look at him, he doesn't think he's any different from anyone else here, walking around."

We were in the toddler room at Chelsea Piers, surrounded by toddlers (aka babies who can walk). Roan was the only non walker.

Wait, I take that back, there was Danny, who was also 9 months old but not yet crawling. Danny's mom was one of those uber-competitive moms and she honed in on the Robot right away.

"How old is he?" and "Is he crawling yet?" she asked these questions aggressively.

"What kind of crawl does he do?" She was squinting at me, suspicious. Did she think I was lying about Roan's ability to crawl?

"Um, it's a pretty standard crawl," I said over my shoulder, and let the Robot lead me away as he stumbled toward the ball room.

She followed us.

"Danny stays on his belly. He pushes himself forward with his toe. Watch." And she deposited her son on the mat right next to us, where he proceeded to lay there and look completely overwhelmed.

"Oh, yeah, like a slithering motion, like an army crawl, I've seen that." I said, just to have something to say in the face of so much awkwardness. She was staring intently at her son, willing him to move. Then she prodded him, trying to get him to propel himself forward with his toe, and the more time passed the more it became clear that Danny had no desire to go anywhere. I wrenched my fingers free of the Robot's grip, and he plopped down to his butt and crawled right past Danny, going after a ball.

"Oh wow," the crazy mom said, clearly impressed, "look Danny, watch!" and spun Danny around so he had better view of the Robot in motion. Danny was non-plussed. He was wearing a pair of oversized dockers and a polo shirt, and looked ready to nod off in a recliner after a long day at the office. But for the next half hour she followed us around, positioning and repositioning Danny so he could watch Roan crawl. At one point, when Roan crawled up some padded stairs she too put Danny on the stairs. If the kid won't move on flat ground, what the hell was he going to do on those stairs?

But I digress. Other than Danny, all the other babies were walkers. And Roan "walked" right up to them to do whatever they were doing, oblivious that he was dragging me around. Thinking this over, I'm afraid that Melinda might be right. If the Robot thinks he is walking just like a big kid, then why would he ever be motivated to walk on his own? Will I spend the next year hunched over so he can hold onto my hands?

Who can know what these babies think. I hope that Roan realizes that none of the other toddlers are holding on to their moms' hands, and wants to be just like them. I am hoping that peer pressure will save my aching back.