Cate’s been taking a few steps on her own here and there over the past few days. I have yet to be able to capture it on video, because even if I have the camera on me, by the time I turn it on and hit “record,” she’s already stopped. I have been able to get a couple of snapshots of her walking while pushing her car in front of her, though.

“Outta my way, coming through!”

She’s a little speed demon with the car, but when she walks by herself, she goes verrrry slow, with her arms out for balance. I think Shannon nailed it when she said that babies look kind of drunk when they first start to walk. The more Cate does it, the more I’m realizing that she looks an awful lot like me after I’ve been in the French Quarter for a couple of hours. (Hee!) Anyway, it’s really cute, and I hope to be able to get a video of it soon.

Speaking of videos, here’s a little rant about something that’s been bugging me. I get Parenting magazine every month. Somebody got a me a subscription when I was pregnant, I can’t remember who. One person gave me Parenting, and someone else gave me Parents. Both magazines are basically bathroom material that I toss in the recycle bin as soon as I’ve finished reading them.

Parenting magazine in particular drives me insane because their tagline on every cover is “What Matters to Moms.” Um, sorry? But isn’t the magazine called Parenting, and not Mothering? So dads don’t count as parents? Or maybe dads have better things to do with their time than read crap magazines that are mostly designed to make you feel like you’re doing everything wrong? (It’s a good technique, really. They strip down your self-confidence so that you think you need the “experts” in the magazine, who tell you to do the things that you already knew, if you only listened to your instincts.)

Anyway, they do these polls online every month and then post the results in the following month’s magazine. The most recent issue published the discussion on “Is it ok for parents to upload a video of their child on YouTube?” And you know, a whopping 63 percent of people said no, you shouldn’t post videos of your kids online. It seems that most people are under the impression that if you put a video of your kid online, you’re asking for them to be kidnapped and molested. WTF??

So, let’s see. There’s a blurry video of my kid on the Internet, with no indication of what city or state I live in, and that’s going to give a pedophile just the info they need to hunt her down and abduct her? How on earth do you make that mental leap? Is it just that people are ignorant as to how YouTube works, or do they really live in that much fear?

Most of the moms I know in the blogging world post both pictures and videos of their kids online all the time without thinking twice about it, so the fact that the vast majority of the moms in this poll came out against it kind of shocked me. Do any of y’all ever worry about this stuff? Because it honestly never crossed my mind. I mean, I don’t put naked pictures or videos of Cate online (although there is a few seconds of bare tush in the middle of this one), mostly because I don’t want her to be embarassed about it when she’s older. And yeah, I do realize there are perverts out there who look for that stuff, but really, the paranoia factor is waaaay down on my list of concerns.

Honestly, I find the whole polling thing in general irritating. It seems as if they’re trying to pick a fight between various groups of mothers. Like we don’t already have enough of that in the world: the stay-at-home versus the working moms, the breast-feeders versus the bottle feeders, etc. It’s just setting up additional conflict where none really needs to exist.

Oh, and hey, if you click over to check out the poll results, be sure to note next month’s topic: Should a woman be able to use fertility treatments to get pregnant if she already has kids? (Shannon, I’d really love it if you wrote in to rip them a new one on that issue.)

Ok, enough of that. Look, a cute picture of a baby with a totally inappropriate pop song title spelled out next to her head!

“Me likey the Justin Timberlake!”

Cate’s pediatrician told me that the average age for most kids to start walking is around 15 months. So I took that nugget of information and stored it away, but honestly, I was starting to get just a teeny-tiny bit worried about Cate’s lack of interest in walking. I knew she was fine, my only concern was because most of the babies I know in real life started walking before their first birthday.

The thing is, she can stand up without holding onto anything for ages. And she can even do her little bouncy dance while standing up, so she obviously has the balance issue down pat. She just wouldn’t move her feet forward, and oh my lord, if we tried to hold her arms and help her walk, she would freak out. She has a little ride-on car, which she won’t ride on, but lately she’s been walking while pushing it in front of her. So, you know, that’s progress, right?

Last night she took a couple of steps sideways – which I guess makes sense, since she “cruises” sideways all the time holding onto the coffee table or the sofa. That was pretty cool. Then later, I was sitting on the floor and she took two steps backwards so she could plop herself down in my lap. That was cool too.

Then tonight, we were hanging out in the living room watching “The Riches” [aside: OMG, I cannot tell you how happy I am that show is back on. Love it, love it, love it!], and Cate was making a mess of her snack rather than eating it. (Bad lazy parent that I am, letting her eat in the living room so I don’t have to peel myself away from the TV.) Suddenly, she let go of the coffee table and took about 5 or 6 steps forward. We thought for a second that maybe she didn’t even realize what she had done, but then she started to laugh, so obviously she did. She didn’t even fall down, she just stopped walking and stood there bouncing in place and laughing at herself.

Later when we were upstairs, she was standing up at her toy chest, and I grabbed her xylophone and moved it just out of reach. She took a couple of steps again so that she could reach it. Whaddya know, I think we might’ve just hit a major milestone. Yay!

“Or not. Whatever. Meh.”

(The new outfit is courtesy of her fabulously fashionable aunt Tracy, who requested photos of her wearing it. The only problem is that she was a huge crank this morning, so that was about as happy as she got for the photo session. Looks like these toddler years are going to be a laugh a minute.)