The Spoon Trick

Worry about a missed milestone gives way to relief... and... sadness?

via Shutterstock

Conventional wisdom goes that babies are walkers or they’re talkers. Mine is a talker– shock of shocks, considering she’s the oldest daughter of two oldest children, and neither her dad nor I (but especially me) ever shut the fuck up. 

Even with that information, when my daughter hit the 16-month mark without so much as being able to stand unsupported, I was a little worried. (I was a lot worried.) 

I worried even though my own mother told me that my brother and sister didn’t walk until they were 18 months old, and both of them grew up to be pretty good athletes; their delayed walking wasn’t a reflection of their future physical abilities. She told me that it happened suddenly. One day they weren’t walking… and the next, they were. 

I worried even though our pediatrician told us that 16+ months was totally within the realm of normal, although it was on the late end of normal, it was still normal. I was worried even though she was interested in practice walking, she was interested in holding the hand of a caretaker and marching through the entire house, she was into pulling herself up and standing while grabbing a piece of furniture for balance. She was even interested in climbing up and down stairs. She would just freak out if, for a second, she didn’t have something to hold onto. I worried nonetheless. 

My husband bought her a loud plastic toy for her first birthday, a “walker” with wheels attached that she could push like a lawn mower that would also play “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and various barnyard animal noises at a high volume. Research around child development shows that most “walking aids” that well-intentioned parents and caretakers buy for infants actually hinder walking. Shoes hinder walking. Those enclosed wheeled bouncer things every 80’s and 90’s parent parked their babies in not only hinder walking, but they’re so dangerous to children that they’re illegal in Canada. But she wasn’t walking at all at that point, and we figured we needed to do something to help her get used to walking upright. And at least this toy was safer than what generations prior were subjecting their kids to.

She still didn’t walk. She got pretty good at pushing that thing, but she didn’t walk.

What she liked to do most was walk while holding hands. We’d spend hours going back and forth across our small house with her clutching my hand, and then clutching my finger. She’d hold my husband’s hand, leading him down the front walk to the gate. She’d hold my hand, leading me to the bin where we keep the dog food, so she could point to the lid and say “Ah, ah ah!” which is the thing I try to say instead of “no.” The second I’d try to let go, she’d scream like she’d been left to drift alone in the ocean.

Okay, I thought, all I need to do is convince her that we don’t need to hold hands anymore.

A few weeks ago deep in some panic googling, I found a Reddit thread where a mom recounted using the “spoon trick” to get her reluctant toddler to toddle unassisted. It goes like this: the parent presents the baby with a wooden spoon, which the baby grabs hold of. The parent holds the spoon along with the baby while the baby walks, eventually letting go of the spoon, thus tricking the baby into thinking they’re holding onto their parent’s hand when they’re actually not. Like Dumbo’s magic feather. 

My daughter caught onto that shit immediately. She was beyond enraged when she realized that I wasn’t holding onto the spoon anymore. Not only did she immediately fall to her butt, she threw the spoon at me with the might of a vengeful god. 

I tried it again, thinking that maybe she’d be amenable a second time, but no. She slapped the spoon away from my hand and screamed. 

I tried other objects she could grab onto instead of my finger, determined to outsmart my one-year-old child. I tried a scarf, the sleeve of my jacket but without my hand in it, one of my husband’s shoes. But Juniper is a suspicious person who remembers all slights forever and lives to avoid them or confront them with rage. (Like her mom, according to her mom’s therapist.) There was no tricking her into walking without my help. 

And then, suddenly, yesterday, she walked without holding onto anything.

She went from taking zero steps to walking across grass in the park, walking across the soft surface of the playground, walking across the living room and dining room with an adult just a step or two behind her, her hands raised awkwardly like a backup dancer from “Thriller.” Somebody had to catch her a few times as she pitched backward, but with every pass, she got more confident. 

This morning, she reached for my finger to help her stand up. When she was on her feet, she started walking, still grabbing my finger for confidence. 

“Honey, we aren’t holding hands anymore,” I reminded her as I gently pried her little fingers off of mine. She hesitated, looked a little confused, and then an expression of determination spread across her face. And she walked on her own. And I cried with that potent combination of feelings that seems to punctuate every milestone, a relieved hello to the next stage of walking and running, a bittersweet goodbye to my baby who could only crawl.