Freya Walks!!!

Two days after she turned 11 months, Freya decided it was time to start walking.  I was sitting on Clara's bed, placing an Amazon order on the ipad for some baby-related item I can no longer recall.  Freya was playing with some toys, when out of the corner of my eye I saw her simply start walking over to me.  6 or so wobbly steps while carrying a toy in each hand, (an empty play-doh can and a toy phone) and she arrived at her destination, my knee, with a giant, 4-toothed grin on her face.  Needless to state, it took me a moment to formulate an appropriate response.  I was gob-smacked and Freya was delighted with herself.

Freya has been confounding our expectations since she was born.  Clara very happily sat in one spot until she was 10 and a half months old, and then started crawling.  Freya has been crawling since she was seven months old.  I guess we shouldn't be surprised that's she's up and walking around. (Clara waited until the sensible age of one year and one week old to try out this whole "walking" thing.)

Clara is absolutely delighted with this turn of events and is constantly trying to get Freya to walk over to her.  Freya is quite confident walking around, hands held up in the air like she's surrendering to the police wherever she goes.  It's all ridiculous and amazing, and it totally doesn't help that Freya is tall enough to run her fingers along high surfaces - like the dining table and our console table - raking down baby no-no's onto her head every time one of us looks away for an instant.

Freya walking around town. 

Freya is also starting to talk - she says "Mama", Dada" or more often "Dadeee", and spends most of her day pointing at things and saying "What's Dat?" The way Freya follows Clara around we're positive the next word in her repertoire is going to be "Clara" or maybe "Sister." Clara likes to call her sister "Freya Beya Boo." We'll see what Freya can come up with.  

The other day Clara came home from camp and was taking a break on her bed with some Pirate's Booty cheese puffs.  Freya crawled into their room to play on the floor.  I heard Clara talking to Freya and then saying 'Here, Freya." Clara called out to me: "Mom, I'm sharing some puffs with Freya!" A few minutes later I could hear them playing together as I walked around tidying up.  Clara's conversation punctuated by Freya's shrieks of laughter was music to my ears.

Sisters.