In three easy steps...

The speed with which Anya has been learning locomotion the past few weeks is extraordinary. It's hard to believe that she was basically unable to crawl until a week or two before we got to the UK. Now she can wear out my old-man knees by scampering all round the house, shrieking with delight and fixing her smile in a permanent sideways D. At Petra's yesterday, she pedalled up the stairs in pursuit of Albert the cat as if it was no more than a gentle incline. And she's standing all the time.

One interesting change I've noticed is that, now she can stand and cruise on her own, she doesn't want help any more. She used to love it when we held her upright by her hands, but now when we do that she goes jelly-legs and gets grumpy. If she's standing, she wants to do it herself.

This comes back to that emerging-personality thing. Anya is extremely sociable and loving, but self-sufficiency also seems quite an important part of her character. She is often quite unwilling to be spoon-fed, preferring finger foods she can shove in her own mouth. And she isn't one of those babies who will only go where her parents lead her: put her down on the lawn and she's off up the garden like clockwork in search of soil she can thrust in her mouth.

On the other hand, isn't that sort of sweeping statement a bit ridiculous? Just because she's been getting slightly grumpy at being stood up, and likes feeding herself a bit more than other babies of her age do, why should I feel confident enough to diagnose grand aspects of her personality?

Naturally, parents can't help doing this, so I'm not losing sleep about it. Furthermore, in some ways it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: however much we may try to make our responses neutral, we've got the idea in our heads now that she's self-sufficient, and will probably unconsciously reward further displays of this characteristic by finding them charming. But it's interesting to me how easily we arrive at our assumptions.

Anyway, this is a long sidetrack from the main point of the post, which is that Anya took her musical walker for a proper walk in the garden a couple of days ago, and this morning performed the same feat on the more challenging surface of the dining room carpet. Obviously, still grasping the zimmer handle, but with perfect balance even as it wheeled away from under her centre of gravity. That's some sort of a breakthrough. Yay!