The Quinn and Her Milestones

I’ve been thinking a lot about milestones as we talk about development and growth around here. There is hardly a day that goes by that we aren’t confronted by Gage and Quinn’s development on a social, medial and educational basis. There are reports and evaluations to turn in and sign, there are meetings to set up, appointments to keep, emails to send with advice on how to deal with a child who is rolling around on the floor in class. Yes, fun times as parents around here.

Quinn is 14 months old in this photo. Because she was a late everything-er she was laying down like this because this is where she was developmentally (about 6-8 months old). She’d just started squatting up onto her knees and hands but it was a hard-earned skill that we only photographed on a couple of occasions. She used a walker from 14-31 months and then she still needed a few more years to feel safe in order to navigate a world of curbs and steps and uneven concrete while walking unassisted.

All the kids in her world adapted to her slow-to-move self and she didn’t mind a bit. After all, they brought her what she wanted, when she wanted, and who wouldn’t want that? Some adults (other mothers for crying out loud) were bordering, if not completely rude. Judgmental even. 

Why is that?

One day, Dawn dared me to write a post about what I saw as benefits to having a child who doesn’t walk until way past the baby book acceptable "normal" range. I told her I thought it might be against my special needs mom code of honor to verbalize it. Late walkers don’t even know there is a whole world up on your desk to terrorize, like her physically agile 3-year-old has known about for a couple of years now. But I have been working on a post in my head and it is a mess in there. In the post somewhere is also an opinion about parents who don’t want their kids seen in public with braces on or using walkers. That one annoys me more than I can accurately describe on paper.