Not letting go

Hallam can walk -

- but, he will not let go of my little finger and do it on his own.

He stands there, and claps his hands “yay big boy standing up well DONE!” I shout, “yayayayaa” he shouts. “Now, just walk over-” and then that’s it. Down onto his knees and away he goes, onwards with the neverending task of removing the drying nappies from the radiators.

It’s not an issue, he is moments away from letting go of the little finger, and I have no worries there – especially now that I know how much shoes for toddlers cost. I am certainly not writing this because it is a ‘thing’, as he is only 14.5 months old and if there’s one thing I do all-day-long it’s copy and paste baby content into a content management system, thus rendering me an EXPERT on babies and the different rates at which they reach milestones.

It’s just frustrating, because I know he can do it and I know he’ll probably quite like it. And, besides anything else it is, after all, the designed method for the species to move about. But – he Will Not Won’t Don’t Want To Do It, and has felt this way for quite some time now. No clever toy positioning or parent open arms will encourage him, thank you very much. In fact, I think such gentle methods of encouragement are actually just annoying him.

I have tried to explain that with walking you have both of your hands free so you can a) eat pennies and b) walk at the same time. But when I try to engage in a further discussion of the merits of walking, how the ability to stand gives one a wider view of surroundings and a definite advantage in tall grasses to spot both predators and prey from afar. But, sigh, he just crawls off to play with his tractor, pushing the button that makes an American farmer sing “e-i-e-i-o!” I suppose human evolution is quite a boring topic for a 14.5 month old non-walking baby, who shows a flagrant disregard for any kind of survival instinct 80% of the time?

I do like his style though. This is how I intend to deal with things I don’t see the point in doing, from now on:

“Suerfiona, please could you prepare a report on blah blah this and email it to me?” Annoying Person Number 37472 will ask.

“E I E I O” I will shout, before crawling off to press buttons on an annoying tractor.*

*This is what I do already, actually. Except I have a computer instead of a tractor and I replace “E I E I O” with “oh, yes, I will add that to my list of things to do” and then instead of not doing it, I, err, do it.