As much as I didn’t want to be that mom who couldn’t shut up about her baby, I was so proud and excited about everything he did. Archie was the happiest little boy. He was really taking after Jack. One of his favourite activities was cruising around, crawling and shuffling on his butt, trying to get into anything and everything. We had to quickly baby proof our house way sooner than we expected. It wasn’t that he started crawling early. He just suddenly started moving around.

Walking was a slightly different story…

Based on Archie’s history, we expected him to take another while longer to start walking. Which I didn’t really mind. With Jack gone for relatively long periods of time, I was often left to do everything by myself. I wasn’t complaining about that, although it did get overwhelming at times. It was just difficult to keep track of Archie and do all the chores for the day. If I left him in his chair or playpen and went off to do something, he’d get so cranky and mad. He needed to move around and explore.

With Jack around, however, things were so much easier. I could take a shower whenever I wanted and for longer than five minutes. Folding laundry wasn’t a speed run and Jack was there to do it as well. Although we still had a young baby, life felt so relaxed whenever Jack was home.

It felt like heaven when I got to take a bath. I had some fluffy foaming bubbles, a book, and a cup of warm tea (instead of the obligatory glass of wine). Jack had even bought a bath pillow meaning that I could lean my head back and almost fall asleep. I had even put my book to the side in fear that I would fall asleep and drop it in the water.

Luckily, I never started snoozing. What wasn’t so lucky was how I had been shaken awake.

“Rachel!” Jack suddenly screamed from downstairs. It wasn’t a shout, calling out to me. No, it was a proper shrill yell that shook my bones.

I immediately went into protective mode. My feet slipped back into the water and I sat up straight, causing the water to nearly slosh out of the tub.

“Ra-chel!” He shrieked yet again when I didn’t respond quickly enough.

“What!” I shouted back, stumbling and slipping around to get out of the tub as quickly as possible.

“He’s starting to walk!”

My eyes went wide. I was absolutely dripping wet, but I couldn’t waste time on drying myself. I pulled a towel off the rack and sloppily wrapped it around my body as I started running. Wet footsteps and water droplets were left all over our wooden floor as I dashed through the hallway and down the stairs.

Jack was in our TV room watching anxiously, his head looking in the direction of the stairs and to Archie, then back to the stairs, and back to Archie. He wasn’t sure what to do. Archie was starting to walk and I wasn’t in the room yet. But he also couldn’t just stop Archie.

But I was there just on time.

We didn’t have a phone or camera close by to record the moment, but we were both there to witness it, and that was better than anything we had hoped for. Archie had pulled himself up by holding onto the couch and Jack was sitting just a few feet away. A TV show Jack was watching was still on in the background, filling the tense empty room. Once he knew I could see, Jack held out his arms and cooed for Archie to come over.

At first, he let go of the couch only to quickly grab onto it again. He did it a few times, managing to occasionally take a step. It almost seemed like today wasn’t the day. But then he took the plunge and went barrelling towards Jack. Well, barrelling… more like careful shaky movements. As soon as he got to Jack’s crossed legs he fell forward, holding on tightly to his father.

“Yay!” Jack cheered and picked up Archie, kissing his chubby little cheeks.

“You did it!” I joined in, a big grin nearly making it impossible for me to speak normally.

I wanted to come in and praise him from closer, maybe even join in on the hug. But standing there in anticipation had given the water on my body enough time to trickle down and hit the floor. As soon as I went and took my first step, I slipped and my both my feet slid from underneath me. In just a slip second, I fell onto the floor, right on my butt.

“And I’m the one who falls?” I groaned with a chuckle, rubbing my back.

Jack looked at me with concern until he heard me laughing a little. Instead he squished his own cheek against Archie’s and said, “oh oh, mommy fell. I’m going to have to inspect her and maybe even act like her doctor.”

“Jack!” I gasped.

But he hadn’t missed a single milestone yet.

Notes

As you can tell, I've switched over to snapshots now! Only the important little events in Jack and Rachel's life. They're about a tenth the length of the original chapters, so hopefully you'll still enjoy them!