More metrestone than milestone for Frankie's first steps.

Well, HELLO walking baby! This is a nice surprise for your mum. (OK, not so much of a surprise; Let's be honest, you've been threatening this for months now. So long in fact that I started to wonder whether you'd just lost your bottle? Ha, get it?)

So anyway - it is official - Frankie took her first proper steps just after she turned 8months. Since then, she's barely managed more than a couple - 4 steps max - without face planting into the carpet, or (ooops) concrete. Yes, my sporty child is now sporting battle scars for her efforts. I couldn't be prouder.

I wouldn't exactly call it 'proper' walking so much as I would call it a very fine impersonation of a drunk zombie. She starts by crawling along an item of furniture until she literally has nowhere else to go. She then turns her body around, takes one cautious hand after another off the sofa/coffee table and propels herself forward - both arms extended - stumbling towards what she hope will catch her and break her fall. Ceeeute.

I had no idea how very difficult a concept it actually is for our children to lift their feet up off the floor. If you watch them trying, it seems as though their feet are super-glued down, with any slight movement upwards shifting their whole center of gravity. It's incredible how one day, poof, this superglue dissolves and away they go...

I've yet to train Frances to do the walking gig on command I'm afraid, hence the lack of video footage for overseas Frankie enthusiasts. Soon enough, I hope.

Thought I'd keep you all in the loop. I guess this move to Coogee has been a winner all round... despite the initial teething and moving woes, Frankie has finally started to properly sleep for 11hours straight, AND she looks set to take to the stage in the next Step Up movie. Atta girl, Frank Frank. Mumma loves ya.

Sans-Cappucino and my hyperactive child

She moves across the floor like a wagon making its way through the wild west. She is wobbly, but focussed and sure enough she gets where she wants to be.

Not content unless in motion, she cranes her neck looking for an object heavy enough to suit her purpose and soon finds it. A cushioned footrest is the perfect climbing aparatus. Now she needs to work her yoga magic to pull herself into standing pose.

"Here I am" she shouts for all the world to hear. It comes out like an excited groan; I wonder when she will finally start using syllables instead of this manly monkey mating call that she's fashioned onto? She groans again, "Look at me".

I smile from across the room and continue to drink my coffee. She mimics me, but puts my own smile to shame. Her two bottom teeth flash like icebergs above her gums.

Thump, thump, thump, she plays music by banging her palms against the footrest. This action contents her for all of four seconds before she deems that she has had quite enough of this malarky, and is ready for her next adventure.

Madamoiselle surveys the room. Where to next?

Suddenly, she realises she is stuck. Her excited groan soon turns into a frustrated one. I hear a "humpf" escape from her as she looks left, than right, but knows she can't go either way without falling over. Resigned to the fact that she's going to take a tumble, she lets go of the footrest that has been propping her up. I hear another thump, but this is the sound of her chubby bottom connecting with the wooden floorboards. Whilst the laws of physics were always going to command that she fall down, it still came as a surprise to her. The wailing begins.

I leave her to cry and keep an observant eye on activities from behind my coffee cup. "C'mon poppet" I purr, "You're ok". She accepts that no cuddle is coming, and realises that ten seconds has elapsed without her having moved. Putting my own exercise regime to shame, Frankie does a mini-press up and her body is in a perfect inverted 'V' against the floor. She pulls her knees down and starts moving, this time towards the vase in the corner of the room with the sweetest fragrance of fresh lavendar.

This is trouble. We've yet to formally baby-proof our home and she has already broken this vase once, requiring emergency glue treatment . I have tried my best with a playpen for emergencies (when I smell like a 4 week old crust of parmesan that's been hidden in the back of the fridge and simply must, must, must have a shower while she is awake) but she hates her prison confines. So I choose to watch over her during playtime instead of leaving her be - on my own head be it.

Quickly I whisk her off the floor and away from the already damaged vase. Trapped in my arms she wrestles against me - I wonder briefly whether she'll ever have a career as a self-defense teacher in girls' high schools. She certainly has a knack for getting out of tough grips. In my arms she pushes, kicks, and wriggles with a strength that defies the 8kilos she is packing.

This little ball of energy does at time exhaust me. I wonder where she gets it from. Certainly I am no lazy sloth, but nor am I a hyperactive middle-aged girlguide wannabe with oodles of energy spilling out of my every pore. As I ponder her maddening nonstop motion it dawns on me that perhaps I am responsible. For there, on the other side of the room, lies my second empty cup of coffee. What I have presumed to be a necessity for managing her energetic behaviour may in fact be the cause of her energetic behaviour.

And now I am left in a frightfulfully awful predicament. Am I willing (and able) to survive a week without coffee to judge the impact on little Frankie-pants's behaviour? Can I sacrifice my daily caffeine injections?

Wish me luck as I embark on a week Sans-Cappacino, and establish whether it's the nature or nurture that's contributing to my daughter's endless restlessness.