Tuesday, March 18, 2008

I Think I Birthed a Monkey With a Sweet Tooth

For the past two weeks, Elizabeth has been climbing the stairs. I turned around one morning, thought she was on the floor at my feet and found her a few minutes later upstairs playing contentedly on the bedroom floor.

I couldn't believe it. The boys were both walking before they mastered the stairs and they were well over a year old as well. It had to be a fluke, I thought, maybe Adam dragged her up there while I was busy blogging cleaning the house.

So I brought her downstairs, deposited her on the tile floor and continued to blog clean when she made a beeline right for the steps.






I thought I'd spot her in case she stumbled, but she didn't need me. She made it up those stairs in less than a minute like she'd been doing it all her life. Everytime she'd make it to the top, she'd stop and clap and laugh at herself. Adam and I spent an entire morning cheering her on. It was cute.

But now. Now it needs to stop.

It is no longer cute.

I am too old to keep huffing up the stairs to retrieve her a hundred times a day.

I keep finding her places she shouldn't be, like my closet in the leftover birthday party bags. You try prying an open pixie stick from that baby. Whoever said "It's as easy as taking candy from a baby" obviously had never done it.



Don't tell me to get a gate either, because she, like the boys, figured out how to knock it down in minutes and the husband won't go for the screw in ones. Something about boogering up the house too much, he'd never be able to patch it, and do we want to live here forever because we'll never sell the house with those holes in the wall. So I continue climbing and fetching while she claps and laughs and I realize she's only ten months old, what in the world is she going to be doing two months from now?



And she's not even walking yet.

9 comments:

Mommy Daisy said...

She's definitely an over-achiever that one. Just doesn't want to be left out of anything.

Could you try putting a chair on it's side in front of the stairs? Maybe it would deter her for a while. That worked a little with my son when he was that age. Otherwise, good luck, because I dont' have many ideas.

tracey.becker1@gmail.com said...

Door locks on the upstairs' rooms! I had a wide and heavy toy box that I put in front of our stairs for a few months, when Corinne discovered that crawling was too slow and began to walk WAY too young. It held her off until she discovered how to climb over it...

Amie said...

OMG! Look at her go! I have actually been trying to help Sadie learn but she is not really interested.

Lynsey said...

Wow, you've definitely go your hands full now! Brendan still hasn't started crawling, but after reading this post, I'm now at peace with that!

Lynn said...

I went to the grocery store last week my husband and son taught Sadie how to climb the stairs. Niiiiice.

Thankfully, it was only novel fun for about 2 days. But when she regains interest, they're going to have to teach her how to slide down on her tummy!

BTW, we have hair envy. Sadie isn't bald, but there is very little on top. She has quite a mullet going. Elizabeth has just the right amount on top for a cute clippie!

Crazed Nitwit said...

You're never going to sit down again! Riley(17yo)started climbing at 8 months and walking at 10. He was running by 10.5 months. In my head I screamed."NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" but it made no difference. My husband believed in baby gates and they kept the kid out of areas that might be dangerous to him. We put the gate up on the third star and he was so peeved he couldn't climb any higher. Hehehe.

Aunt Becky said...

Clever girl, that one.

Good luck, darlin'. Alex is sure to be learning RIGHT behind her :)

Burgh Baby said...

You are SCREWED!

BTW, I won the screw-in baby gate battle by laying a little guilt on the Hubs. It was something to the affect of I would rather lose a few bucks trying to patch walls or on the selling price of the house than on medical bills when our daughter nearly killed herself on the stairs. Then I added a bit about IF we were fortunate and she didn't end up killing herself. It worked quite nicely.

Shane H. said...

Bless your heart! I had a climber/nosy nellie too. He about drove me nuts. My big problem were our kitchen cabinets at the time. They had no handles se we couldn't use those nifty little white tie thingies to keep him out of the lower ones. I found him sitting in the middle of a huge pile of oats on day. But, this too shall pass and will bring a smile to your face for years to come. :)