There are few milestones in child development as definitive as walking. At least, it sure seemed that way back before my son Max arrived. After all, you either walk or you don't. Just like being pregnant or not, right?

Well, no. My own parents can't remember exactly when I first walked, although as my mom put it, "you could've done it a long time before you actually did." While this particular observation could also be applied to any number of other moments in my life of oft-spectacularly delayed achievement, it is somewhat less than definitive. The best guess seems to be that I began walking sometime between my first birthday and 14 months.

Max and I belong to a play group. We meet other kids and their moms (there are no other stay-at-home dads in this group, which means the other kids give me loads of attention) every Monday morning and talk about most anything. Sometimes there are questions about some odd thing or another that our kids are doing (for example, the parents of boys all noted the somewhat disturbing discovery of a new pull toy--if you know what I mean--between six and eight months of age). As more and more of the kids began to haul themselves up on two feet and wander around while holding on to furniture or walls or whatever else is handy (this supported form of walking is commonly referred to as "cruising," a term which might well come from the uncanny similarity of this sort of movement to that of drunks at bars trying to score a warm body for the evening), we decided to come up with a definitive test for walking.

Three unsupported steps. That was our de facto decision, made after Preston accomplished this feat one week. Sounded good to all of us. And so, when Max began letting go of the coffee table or the sofa and stumbled through two or three or five steps, I was all ready to pronounce him a walker at 11 months.

Then he quit and went back to crawling full-time.

This is the sort of thing that all parents go through. A child will display some sort of brilliant feat at an early age, only to apparently forget it and not repeat said brilliance for days, weeks or even months. An 11-month-old girl named Rosie (daughter of some friends from college) taught the then three-month-old Max how to wave. To her. And only her. After leaving Rosie's presence, Max didn't wave again for six or seven months.

I've discovered an interesting rule of thumb. Whenever I'm ready to give up on Max ever learning a particular skill, he comes through. It's almost as if he senses the frustration of his parents and kicks himself into overdrive. Or, more likely, he simply gets tired of toying with us and decides to move on to something else. In any case, this theory held true with rolling over and crawling (which isn't actually a developmental stage, but still). I figured it would also work with walking.

Anyway, after showing early promise by taking a number of unsupported steps before collapsing, Max reverted to full crawl. Admittedly, crawling was faster and more efficient than his halting two-legged stagger, but it still seemed to me that Max would want to imitate his parents at some point.

But for the longest time he didn't. He spent his days babbling in more and more complex patterns. He cruised around the furniture and walls in ever-speedier fashion. He practiced standing unsupported. He even began bouncing while standing, a movement that Barbara and I call "dancing." That he "dances" most vigorously to hardcore punk and death metal (he seems particularly responsive to the stylings of Bad Religion, Snapcase and Pungent Stench) tells me that he's a big fan of drums and bass. Which means he might, in fact, be dancing. All fine accomplishments, to be sure, but they surely weren't the same as walking.

With the whole "three unsupported steps" theory blown all to hell, I needed a new definitive test for walking. I figured it would be something like the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity (you know it when you see it), but I was hoping I'd be able to come up with something vaguely scientific-sounding nonetheless.

Didn't happen. A week or so after his first birthday, Max resumed taking a few unsupported steps at a time, always aiming at some object. He was walking with purpose, but not as a means of locomotion and exploration. Was this really walking?

I decided that it wasn't. After watching this phenomenon for a few days, I decided that Max would actually be walking when he began walking "with intent and as a means of general locomotion." In other words, he would be a true walker when he simply got his butt up off the floor and began wandering around in search of something to do (but without any specific aim in mind).

Parents like to imagine that they can read their children's minds. I share this conceit, although I'd the first to admit that my telekinetic powers as related to Max are decidedly weak. Still, a week before Max turned 13 months, I noticed that he was indeed getting up off the floor with the apparent intent to simply wander around the house. Barbara said she'd noticed the same thing a day or so earlier. One week later, when Max turned 13 months old, we were able to say with confidence that our little boy had indeed joined bipedal society. When it actually happened remains a mystery (all this nonsense about capturing the "first steps" on video seems quite absurd to me), but now that he's ambling about on two feet we're quite sure that he's walking.

Just don't ask us to name the date when Max officially moved from four legs to two. That question is way too damned complicated.

Jon Worley still has problems walking now and again.