Our son started walking at the same time - at about 8 months - but he was only taking 3 to 5 steps before he'd fall down and we have a hardwood floor in our house so we didn't encourage these explorations alone.
By 9.5 months he was walking across the room alone on a regular basis - and we let him explore alone even more when we were visiting family and friends during summer vacation and with carpeted floor everywhere there was less concern about him face-planting on the wood floor. After the carpeted floor experience, he never looked back.
He started saying his first words at around 11 months - and now at 16 months has a vocabulary of about 80 or 90 words and its increasing very quickly. It really does seem to me that his memory is significantly better than expected. Most kids his age are talking with only 5 to 10 words says our pediatrician.
So far - the choline supplement effort during pregnancy seems to be paying off.
Tune in next month - and I'll try to post more frequent updates.
