Walk This Way

Tonight, while I was grilling some chicken for dinner, Jude brought John Patrick out to the back deck to say goodnight before she took him upstairs for bed. She sat down with him in a chair on one corner of the deck. I was sitting on a cooler, across the deck from them. She set him down, on his feet in front of her, facing me.

John Patrick looked at me, said "Da da," then walked across the deck to me, his arms in the air above his head (for balance, I suppose) and a big grin on his face. I picked him up, held him in my arms and we both laughed. Then, I set him on the ground. He looked at Jude, said "Ma ma," and walked across the deck to her. For the next 15 or 20 minutes, he walked back and forth between us, laughing the whole time. Jude and I were amazed.

He fell a couple of times, but got up on his knees without crying and crawled over to Jude. He held on to her legs, stood up, then walked back over to me again. I was reminded of those shows on the Discovery Channel, where they show plants growing or flowers blooming with some type of time lapse photography. It was like he was growing up right before our eyes.

Watching my son take his first real steps tonight, walking first to me, then to his mother, is one of the true highlights of my life. I'll never forget it.