Walking on the beach

Charlotte is officially a walker now. She seemed to figure it out over night and now is a firm believer that anywhere she used to go on four, she can now get there faster on two.

I love to watch her on the move--each step of her chunky legs so deliberate as her pink-slippered feet pad down the sidewalk.

After dinner, she likes to pace down the sidewalk in front of our house, parading her new-found skill to the neighbors. Her wide-mouth smile and belly laugh tell the world how proud she is of herself.

I think walking on the beach must be hard for our little explorer. The sand slows her down, but makes for such a nice cushion for her oh-so-frequent falls. She plops down onto her bottom and quickly climbs her way back up on two feet to begin again.

As she has started her exploration of the world as a walker, her vocabulary has exploded. We stroll down the beach as she points out birds and babies. She does not believe she is a baby any longer and seems so charmed by the newborns on the beach, swaddled in their mothers' arms, resting under an umbrella, or sleeping in a stroller. "Baba, baba," she'll announce and it will bring me back to last summer, when she was the little bundle, sleeping in my arms and smiling at her sand-castle-building brothers from under her umbrella.

As Will and Carter dig in the sand, Charlotte collects sea shells. She toddles down the shoreline and squats down as different objects catch her eye. We'll hold hands, with Charlotte grabbing onto my index finger. She stop, exclaiming "Mama, mama," and squat down to grab a seashell or stone, rounded smooth by the ocean waves. She hoards her find in her dimpled hands, until another treasure catchs her eye. She squats down onto her haunches again, dropping her rock for a better shell, then her shell for a better rock. She'll sometimes manage to to stuff a few small shells into her little hands, and giggles, charmed by the playthings she has discovered and so proud of her accomplishments.

As I walk with her, I am equally as charmed, and as proud.