We have a walker! That’s what Michael’s text read on Wednesday evening. Jackson James has been walking around things and taken steps holding on to his mom or dad, but this was his first solo romp. Firsts are a big deal.
I spoke to Mike on the phone the following evening, and he reported Jackson greeted him when he arrived to pick him up from daycare that day. He walked towards him for the first time with his arms outstretched and all those present were surprised. The caregivers clapped and his fellow classmates joined in. That’s all I know right now, but Ruth is there for the weekend, so I’ll get the lowdown from her.
Hearing about Jackson’s first steps took me back to a couple of firsts from my own three. David’s big first was a tooth. It arrived one evening when Ruth wasn’t around. He was drooling like there was no tomorrow so I did a full-blown investigation. I poked my finger into his mouth and there it was. I had to share the news with someone, so I called my mom and dad to tell them, and then moved on to my Grandpa Barner. I had called him in Kentucky the night David was born and was sure he’d want to hear about this first tooth. He congratulated me on my discovery and excused himself so he could return to his ice cream with Hersey’s chocolate syrup before it melted.
Elizabeth was about eighteen months old when she transitioned to “big girl underwear” and stopped wearing diapers. She got up from a nap, and as I was changing her clothes, she told me she wanted to wear her “big girl underwear”. As I helped her dress we talked about her underwear. I told her I would buy her some “pretty” ones if she stopped wearing diapers. She said, “OK”. We struck a deal, and she was dry from then on.
Michael was older when he stopped wearing diapers. Like his older brother, he wasn’t in a hurry to move on from them. I think the boys just weren’t interested in dry pants. They wore diapers for what seemed like forever. I still remember the day we stopped washing them. It had been seven years of daily washing. We used disposable diapers when we visited others, but always used washable ones at home. Seven years of daily diaper washing is a long time.
We recorded many of the kid’s achievements in baby books. Baby books are scrapbooks kept by parents to track their child’s development. They became popular over 100 years ago to keep track of children’s diseases, immunization records, and growth. My mom kept a baby book for me, and Ruth kept one for each of our three. They’re somewhere in a storage box packed away for safe keeping. They’re so safe, we haven’t looked at them for decades.
Baby books are old school. Parents use smartphone video cameras to record firsts now. I like the new way because they are easier to share.