Well, it took me a little while longer than I expected, but I have (largely using another Blogger template) redesigned the Hardlyborn.

Yeah, I think it looks pretty snappy, too.

But that's not the most important thing that took place today. Earlier tonight, as we were preparing to take Reid upstairs for a bath, the little man walked.

He absolutely took bold steps out into oblivion, sporting that huge grin that has melted every heart it's met. He walked from K to me, sitting by the couch, engineering four or five daring but wobbly steps on his own before collapsing into my arms.

Immediately, Operation Enduring Videography was launched. Truth be told, prior to this moment, we mostly took humorous video of Reid clambering all over one of us, or mutely sitting with an adult whose tongue was also suddenly stilled by the all-seeing eye of the video camera (a Canon ZR-65, if anyone cares). The other day, Reid fell asleep in his highchair, literally in the middle of the act of chewing some food. Just zonked out like a narcoleptic. K got out the video camera and shot carefully narrated footage of the discarded meat, snubbed sweet potato, ignored jar of mixed vegetables, and even the dog carefully grooming the seat around the sleeping boy for escaped morsels of food. Reid gently snored through the entire exercise.

But walking was what Operation Enduring Videography was meant for. At first, we feared a WB-Frog moment, wherein Reid would never repeat his amazing walking stunt as long as the camera was on him (but would, following this to its logical conclusion, sing "hello my baby" as soon as he heard the ping of the camera shutting down). But instead, he remained game for the walking, conducting another cross-living room traipse and then a daring ten-second free-stand, during which his face experienced such a staggering range of expressions that it seems as if he may just explode with emotion.

Operation Enduring Videography being what it is, all of this subsequent activity was captured on semi-grainy digital video (because Operation EV is just getting out of the gate, both of its principal engineers forgot to turn on the overhead light, natch). As the delayed but necessary bath of Reid finally got under way, I sat downstairs busily importing video onto my laptop, editing clips like I had even a half a clue of what I was doing, and creating a hasty two minute chronology of Reid's walking exercises (from a hilarious assisted walking adventure in which Reid insists on holding the family phone while pacing through the kitchen, like a little baby talking to his broker through to tonight's actual walking).

With pride, I exported the 129 seconds of baby-related bliss into a file I was assured would be small enough to email. I mean, that obviously is why video on the internet is so crappy, right? It's shrunk to the size of a nickel so you can email it, right?

The file is enormous. One set of grandparents has high speed internet access (these are technically grandparents after all), so it was dispatched. For the other grandparents, Operation Enduring Videography was forced to resort to the description services usually reserved for blind people in movie theatres. "Reid walked!"