The Little Ninja who couldn't...

...walk. The Little Ninja, who was, admittedly, late to sit, late to crawl and late to stand, is, unsurprisingly perhaps, late to walk. (Aside: Just trying to squeeze as many commas as I could into that sentence.) While most kids walk at around 12 months, and approximately ALL of the particular kids around us are starting even earlier, The Little Ninja is still only crawling at 18 months. I am going crazy.

While it is technically still (barely) within the range of normal development, and I don't in my heart of hearts actually believe there is anything wrong with him, I am stressed out about this. I feel pressure to do something. This pressure might be entirely imagined, but it affects me nonetheless. The worst part of this, however, is that I can't do anything about it. I can reason with myself till my face turns blue that "he'll walk when he wants to," as people keep saying to try to reassure me when I mention it, but the fact is, I don't know if I believe it. I am extremely annoyed that he can't walk yet. And I can't do anything about the walking either. Because, apparently, he WILL walk when he's good and damned well ready. And nothing I do will speed that up. Believe me. I encourage him. I walk him around while he holds on to my fingers. I reach out, hoping he'll walk to me a few steps across the room this time, instead of sitting down and crawling over, like all past experience has taught me to expect. I try not to show my disappointment and I try to stifle my jealousy when the next much younger kid is already walking. I try to stay positive, even defensively spouting the positive "I guess he's just not ready yet" nonsense in response to other people's commentary, but it's all a lie. In my head I'm screaming: Walk, Child! Just stand up and walk!

Subconsciously, I probably pass on some of this pressure and frustration, though I try not to say or do anything too negative or direct. And there will be those of you reading this (haha) that no doubt believe I should just relax because everything happens in its own time. I wish I could. Really, I do. And I try. For The Little Ninja's sake. He should be allowed to develop on his own timetable. And the sweet mother in me agrees with this wholeheartedly.

The selfish adult in me, however (who may well be more forceful than that sweet mother), is sick and tired of it:

• carrying the damned heavy kid, because this is Holland, where they don't pave everything and it rains all the time so I can never set him down without him immediately getting filthy and/or soaked
• buying new pants because he's worn the knees out (while I would like to repair them, there's just no time, frankly)
• buying new shoes because he's still supposed to wear soft shoes until he's been walking well for three months and soft shoes just cannot withstand the force of his crawling (neither can the tops of his feet, which is why we put shoes on him in the first place. That and it's cold and wet)
• grimacing and washing because his hands are constantly disgusting, because he constantly has them on the ground. I firmly believe that this would be improved by walking. Perhaps not by much right away, but eventually.
• delaying. There are so many great things to do once you can walk (or at least stand up without holding on to anything). And I want to do them with The Little Ninja. And none of them will happen this summer. Even though I wanted and expected them to. And maybe I secretly fear that they won't happen next summer, either.

Walk, Ninja! For yourself, because walking is wonderful. But also for Mama, to ease her back muscles, stress, frustration and (secret) fears.