  We blogging parents know our way around the internet.  Our kid coughs and within a few clicks we’ ve realized there’ s a high incidence of whooping cough this year ( b/ f you worry,
 I’ m totally making this analogy up)  and we should look for x and y symptoms to develop in the next 48 hours if that’ s what they have.  We know the typical complications and how long you can proceed with homecare before seeking the care of your pediatrician.  It comes as no surprise then that every now and then we find ourselves getting a little trigger happy with the mouse button.
 We can easily work ourselves into anxiety with just enough “ medical”  information.  I’ m coming out.  This happened to me,
 and I wasn’ t alone.  Apparently,  urlLink two urlLink other mom bloggers were going through the exact same thing!  The week before Christmas Ellie stood up and proceeded to take two big steps.  urlLink I was so excited !
 Aidan walked on the early side of the bell curve and she appeared to be following suit.  The problem was,  she did not continue to walk.  Instead,  she began scooting around on her knees.  She was very fast and efficient with it,
 so I told myself that,  aside from the worn out pants,  no harm was being done.  But I was worrying inside pretty bad.  All the neighbors' kids were walking,  and I'd seen my own son walk so early!
 urlLink Fueling my worry was the knowledge that Ellie had crawled really early,  so was there a sudden environmental exposure that had urlLink halted her motorskill development ?  Shouldn't she be running after her brother?  I found myself re- reading Elise Eliot’ s What’
s Going on in There,  the chapter titled Motor Milestones,  and especially the subchapter titled How to Encourage a Baby’ s Motor Development.  I panicked when I read,  “
many studies have noted significant spurts in babies’  cognitive and social development following the onset of independent locomotion.  Moving quickly and easily around was clearly a catalyst of sorts to all sorts of non- motor development.  I couldn’ t then,
 nor was I ever able to find a source that discussed whether scooting sufficed for a catalyst,  and whether taking two steps once in a blue moon,  but otherwise scooting counted as having initiated walking.  “  urlLink Normal ”  development takes into consideration the rate that children already developed in a broad study of the American children’
s population during some recent study.  Children in developing countries tend to develop motor skills much earlier,  and children in our own country whose genes are from parents from developing countries still tend to beat out their counterparts from European American genetic backgrounds.  Some scientists theorize the strength stems from generations of mothers who pushed their children to walk because it made the child easier to raise,  but I think Margaret Mead penned this one best when she discussed Somoan babies in Coming of Age in Somoa:  “
Their diminutive nurses [ children charged with their oversight]  do not encourage children to walk,  as babies who can walk about are more complicated charges.  And indeed,  I can vouch,
 much of a mother’ s bliss becomes tarry when a child becomes mobile.  It should be noted that in general the Somoans did not mark ages,  even birthdays.  So developmental advances weren’ t waited upon either.
 I remember as I approached my first due date how angry I was to realize the date was set by the peak of a bell curve of all delivering mothers ( subsequent pregnancies included)  and first time mothers notoriously set the tail end of that curve.  That the majority of births happened at 40 weeks didn’ t mean at all that I should give birth by then,  or on the date.
 Sure enough,  I went late enough for induction.  It was a crewel lesson in bell curves.  As most parents who’ ve done urlLink their e- research now know,
 our country’ s bell curve urlLink for normal development peaks at 12 or 13 months,  with a urlLink standard deviation of up to three months.  This means the most kids studied walked at 12 or 13 months,  but urlLink the vast majority walked between 9 and 16 months.  urlLink This UK article says even 17 months is within the range of normal.
 If your child is among the 5%  slowest walkers studied,  or if your child hasn’ t taken any steps at all by the end of 16 months,  you’ re likely to be sent to physical therapy by your doctor,
 where a specialist will assist those first steps.  Most kids,  including my own,  urlLink are pigeon toed ,  or urlLink bow legged .  This almost always stems from the awkward crisscross position they held in the womb during much of their development,
 and even continue to hold when sleeping in the fetal position.  If the pigeon toed legs have knees that touch each other when the child stands,  it might merit medical treatment,  but otherwise,  most kids grow out of it.  If they’
re still significantly pigeon toed by 18 months,  your doctor might suggest sleeping braces.  Regarding Ellie and the scooting,  I was able to find situations where scooting bothered her.  When she scooted her bare knees on the tree bark that softens the playground,  she’
d get annoyed enough to stand.  Or when she tried to scoot in a dress,  she’ d get tripped enough to use feet and hands.  I decided to make more of these obstacles in an effort to get her up and walking.  In addition,
 we walked her around with our hands all the time.  We experimented with hard and soft soled shoes,  and barefoot and noticed no difference among any of them,  aside from slipping on the wood floor in socks.  Since we're a normally barefoot family,  we ended up going with no shoes most of the time.
 I can never know if these measures had any effect,  but I can happily say that in these past few weeks she’ s knee- scooted less and less and actually walked around more and more.  I think I can finally say yes when people ask if she's walking yet.  Now nearing 16 months,
 she’ ll help set the outliers of the bell curve,  _if_ regularly walking is counted rather than initiated walking but didn’ t rely on it.  Who knows!  We tried to make the best of her situation as months passed,
 we said she thinks we're all idiots for not walking her way,  or we said it was an early indication of how individual she was.  We got lots of shots of it on video b/ c we could tell it would be a story we told and retold as she grew.  I tried hard to celebrate her exactly as she was and not expect development according to normal.  But I did fret an awful lot.
 At least I survived the wait,  and if you’ re still waiting,  you’ ll somehow survive it,  too.
