In the last two days Colton has mastered the art of climbing stairs. Despite my best efforts to keep him from even trying.
And while he has been quite successful and seems to be very energized by this new endeavor, I am exhausted by my failures. Every thirty seconds, I have to jump up from whatever I'm doing to pull him off the stairs (or hover behind him while I allow him yet another summit attack). It's been awful. There is nowhere in my house that is safe.
The best I can do is to stick him in the crib or a high chair if I need to use the bathroom. Or occasionally I have been known to put him downstairs with lots of toys and then roll the love sack in front of the stairs. I using the piano bench to block the stairs once, but he just went right under that. It didn't even faze him a bit. But mostly I just drop what I'm doing and race to get him before he can fall. Once he's at the top, he crawls gleefully around the upstairs rooms for a few minutes exploring, and then is drawn-- almost magnetically-- back to the stairs to contemplate how to get down them. So far I have NOT allowed him to try this, although it's just a matter of time before I'm too slow and he tumbles. And our stairs are wooden, so it's going to be really awful when that happens.
He also has discovered the joys of opening and closing things, so I have to keep cupboards locked up and nothing fun in the lower drawers. Even my pantry turns into a war zone if I leave it open.
This is all fine and good and part of babies learning, and I get that, but here's what irks me: THIS KID WON'T WALK. AT ALL!!!!!
Why would you be more interesting in climbing up and down the stairs than in walking, for crying out loud???
Anyway, we've had one baby gate up for months now to keep him from falling down the stairs. But the gate that would keep him from climbing up the other half has been employed as a plant holder. The plants aren't really ready to move outside just yet, but I'm afraid they'll have to. Because I need that baby gate for its original purpose again.
I'm not sure I can take this any more...
2 comments:
Thank goodness for cribs and high chairs!
It's really good to be able to put them somewhere locked up (ie a crib, nothing cruel of course...) so you can have a breather! I'm really glad that I read a later post already saying that he's getting closer. And there is something really fascinating about stairs - whenever I host playgroup I always feel bad because my friends are just chasing their 15 month olds up and down the stairs...
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