For the last 2 or 3 months Elana has been slowly working her way up to walking -- she'd take 1 or 2 steps and decide that was enough. She'd confidently walk if you held one of her hands and she'd run if you held both of her hands. But she found that crawling got her where she wanted to be faster and so she just didn't bother much with walking,
In the last month she'd been taking more and more steps more often - 5 or 6 at a time - she once took 10 but again it was all too slow for her and if she tried to run she'd fall over.
In the last week she's just been getting up and going off. Yesterday she walked from the couch to around the corner out of my sight - when I got up off the couch to follow her she had fallen beside the stairs - I expect she got as far as the kitchen before stopping. She walked around in circles between the television and Nick.
This morning I was out of the room and I could hear her in the kitchen banging on the bin. Then I thought I heard her crawling up the hallway but when I looked out she was walking - she walked straight past me got as far as her bedroom door, sat down and crawled to me.
I came down to the computer to email Nick and write this blog and she just started walking around From the back door to the television over to the carpet and the toys and back to the tv - she's been standing there for 5 minutes now.
So 2 days before her 13th month - Elana walks. Properly. and EVERYWHERE