On Gray's 9 month birthday (April 22nd) we were just sitting around watching some TV and Gray was playing in the living room. We have 2 ottomans (ottomen? haha) and they were out under our feet and Gray was crawling around, standing up with the help of whatever was above him, sitting down "PLOP" on his butt, standing without holding on, etc. And also getting into trouble, because he is always doing that.
He crawls over to my ottoman and stands up, then lets go and is standing there looking at me. It was a pivotal moment because I saw a look in his eyes and knew he was contemplating doing something big. His eyes are dark, kind of a greeny brown (still not completely brown for unknown reasons) and he always looks just a little bit mischievous. That night was no exception, but he also had this look of pure determination and bravery.He stood there looking at me for maybe 3 seconds. Our eyes connected. He gave me his little half grin and took off. Three, maybe 4 tiny little steps with no support and landing in my arms a squealing, kicking, happy little monster.
That was it. No leading up to it, probably the opposite in that we don't encourage him to walk because he gets into too much stuff the way it is. After those tiny first steps I felt sure that we were on the precipice and he would be zooming around on 2 legs right away. But that's just not the way Gray goes about life. He prefers to make these huge paradigm shifts and then just go about business as usual for a few more weeks or months. Since that day, he's walked a handful of times. He can walk beside you holding one of your hands (or both) and he will sneak a walk in if it is a short distance - from one object to another (or to me). He mostly still prefers to crawl, though, and sometimes when I try to walk with him holding one of my hands he will sit instead, so he can crawl, because him crawling is faster than me walking and is way faster than him walking.
