The Confidence of Babies

AG Mayes
3 min readNov 29, 2022
A baby holding himself up on a wooden box full of books.
Photo by Brina Blum on Unsplash

A question has been circling in my mind lately. How do babies get their energy?

At nine months old, my kid cruises around non-stop.

I’m simultaneously impressed and exhausted. He started crawling, but before we finished celebrating that milestone, he pulled himself up on the furniture. Standing is even more fun than crawling. And what he lacks in balance, he more than makes up for in confidence.

He lets go of the coffee table or sofa, and he’s surprised every time he falls over. I want that kind of confidence. No matter how many times he falls, he tries again minutes later, firmly believing that he will succeed this time.

He crashes to the ground so often that, “uh oh,” is the first word he has clearly and intentionally said.

Every corner, from coffee tables to bookshelves, suddenly looks sharper and more dangerous than ever before. Do I bubble wrap the kid or the house?

If I dare to get my fingers anywhere near his little hands, he grabs on and uses me as his own personal walker.

I try to explain to him that he has an old mom. Maybe if I’d had him in my 20s, I could hunch over and walk him the miles and miles and miles he wants to travel. But since I’m well into my 30s, after five minutes in the crouched position, I’m fantasizing about massages and…

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AG Mayes
AG Mayes

Written by AG Mayes

Writer, parent, parking lot striper, and developmental editor. Always on a quest to find the perfect pie.

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