Climb Every Step
Check off another mode of transportation for Abbie; she can climb now. This wonderful new locomotion opens up a whole world of possible ways for her to hurt herself. No longer will she have to be content with a skinned knee after tripping and falling on cement. Now she can try climbing a chair only to have it tip over as her weight throws it off-balance and maybe twist an ankle on the way down! Or maybe crack her head open hitting a cabinet!! Fortunately she can only climb about 12 inches at a time right now, so we don’t have a lot of things for her to climb on just yet.
Her climbing ability originated with her tendency to fall over the edge of things, like the bathtub. Falling over an edge isn’t exactly climbing, but it does teach necessary leaning skills. She first fell into the bathtub a couple months ago, and later fell in few times more before we wizened up and started keeping the bathroom door closed. She wasn’t really trying to climb on the bathtub, but instead was trying to reach an object in the bathtub that she wanted, like a carelessly tossed Weeble or morbidly obese cat. She just started leaning trying to grab whatever, and eventually managed to lean far enough to fall into the tub, much to the cat’s dismay. Before calling the authorities on us, keep in mind she never hurt herself falling in the tub. There was never any water in the tub except for whatever dwindling moisture the cat was trying to absorb. She never cried immediately after falling in except for that first time when the learning of a new physics lesson shocked her. Now once that cat or Weeble escaped the confines of the bathtub and she realized that she was trapped in a bathtub alone, then she started crying, but I always rescued her just as soon as I managed to stop laughing. A couple of weeks ago she also started leaning over and falling into her toy box while foraging for those hard-to-reach blocks. She never hurt herself falling into her toy box either, though she did get pretty upset when she grew bored of everything left in the toy box and realized she couldn’t escape. Here’s a picture of her trapped in the toy box taken moments before she realized all her good toys were already strewn throughout the living room.
I discovered that she had taken the next step to, um, taking steps yesterday. We were wandering around the backyard when the dog decided she wanted inside. Usually the dog enjoys being outside rolling in the grass, barking at the neighbors, and racing Abbie to find disgusting things to put in her mouth. Yesterday I guess she was tired of being chased by Abbie, though, because she pawed at the door to go back in while ambled through the lawn. Abbie looked content in the grass, so I left her there while I climbed the two concrete steps onto our back porch to open the back door. The dog ran inside, I turned around, and much to my surprise Abbie was on her way up the second step. This process involved leaning onto the porch like it was a bathtub wall, swinging one leg up and around onto the porch, and using every appendage with traction to pull herself up. I would have intervened to prevent her from falling on the cement and potentially splitting her head open, but she moved too fast for me to help. Plus it was pretty cool seeing her climb steps by herself for the first time, and since she had already taken one step, I figured nothing could possibly go wrong.*
Nothing did go wrong as she scaled heights approaching two feet. Abbie thought climbing so high was pretty cool as she spent the next several minutes toddling back and forth on our eight-foot wide porch. She reminds me of a bird who wants to climb high to appear as dominant as possible for a creature whose diet consists entirely of something resembling Froot Loops. Abbie realizes that our porch’s size limits her toddling opportunities, so she has been trying relentlessly to climb on our neighbor’s deck. That sucker has to be a 15-foot square. I have to help her onto it for now, which is something I’m reluctant to do since it could lead to our neighbors thinking that a very tiny burglar is casing their home. She loves wandering on that deck so much, I just have to help her climb it. Once up there, she toddles and laughs, laughs and toddles, and does a great job of staying clear of the edges. It’s like she already knows the dangers of splitting her head open.
* Ellie didn’t have as much faith in her abilities since when I told her she climbed the steps for the first time, the first thing she said was “so is that how she fell?” Psht, no. She fell trying to get a toy off the table, but that’s another story.
Her climbing ability originated with her tendency to fall over the edge of things, like the bathtub. Falling over an edge isn’t exactly climbing, but it does teach necessary leaning skills. She first fell into the bathtub a couple months ago, and later fell in few times more before we wizened up and started keeping the bathroom door closed. She wasn’t really trying to climb on the bathtub, but instead was trying to reach an object in the bathtub that she wanted, like a carelessly tossed Weeble or morbidly obese cat. She just started leaning trying to grab whatever, and eventually managed to lean far enough to fall into the tub, much to the cat’s dismay. Before calling the authorities on us, keep in mind she never hurt herself falling in the tub. There was never any water in the tub except for whatever dwindling moisture the cat was trying to absorb. She never cried immediately after falling in except for that first time when the learning of a new physics lesson shocked her. Now once that cat or Weeble escaped the confines of the bathtub and she realized that she was trapped in a bathtub alone, then she started crying, but I always rescued her just as soon as I managed to stop laughing. A couple of weeks ago she also started leaning over and falling into her toy box while foraging for those hard-to-reach blocks. She never hurt herself falling into her toy box either, though she did get pretty upset when she grew bored of everything left in the toy box and realized she couldn’t escape. Here’s a picture of her trapped in the toy box taken moments before she realized all her good toys were already strewn throughout the living room.
I discovered that she had taken the next step to, um, taking steps yesterday. We were wandering around the backyard when the dog decided she wanted inside. Usually the dog enjoys being outside rolling in the grass, barking at the neighbors, and racing Abbie to find disgusting things to put in her mouth. Yesterday I guess she was tired of being chased by Abbie, though, because she pawed at the door to go back in while ambled through the lawn. Abbie looked content in the grass, so I left her there while I climbed the two concrete steps onto our back porch to open the back door. The dog ran inside, I turned around, and much to my surprise Abbie was on her way up the second step. This process involved leaning onto the porch like it was a bathtub wall, swinging one leg up and around onto the porch, and using every appendage with traction to pull herself up. I would have intervened to prevent her from falling on the cement and potentially splitting her head open, but she moved too fast for me to help. Plus it was pretty cool seeing her climb steps by herself for the first time, and since she had already taken one step, I figured nothing could possibly go wrong.*
Nothing did go wrong as she scaled heights approaching two feet. Abbie thought climbing so high was pretty cool as she spent the next several minutes toddling back and forth on our eight-foot wide porch. She reminds me of a bird who wants to climb high to appear as dominant as possible for a creature whose diet consists entirely of something resembling Froot Loops. Abbie realizes that our porch’s size limits her toddling opportunities, so she has been trying relentlessly to climb on our neighbor’s deck. That sucker has to be a 15-foot square. I have to help her onto it for now, which is something I’m reluctant to do since it could lead to our neighbors thinking that a very tiny burglar is casing their home. She loves wandering on that deck so much, I just have to help her climb it. Once up there, she toddles and laughs, laughs and toddles, and does a great job of staying clear of the edges. It’s like she already knows the dangers of splitting her head open.
* Ellie didn’t have as much faith in her abilities since when I told her she climbed the steps for the first time, the first thing she said was “so is that how she fell?” Psht, no. She fell trying to get a toy off the table, but that’s another story.
posted by Matt at
9:45 PM
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