Climber No Climbing

Gentle whimpering from the twins’ monitor pulled me from sleep this morning. Ellie had already left for work, so I like to wait until it degenerates into crying before I roll out of bed; they could still fall back asleep, and if I can finagle a few more minutes of sleep in the morning I will. As the sleep faded and my senses returned, I realized that the complaining I heard wasn’t coming through the monitor, it was coming from Abbie’s room. I rolled my eyes before rolling out of bed, and staggered my way into her room to see where she had trapped herself. This time she was stuck on the twins’ crib, arms dangling over the top railing without a foothold to climb into the crib, but too high to fall off the ground. I have no idea how long she’d been up there. Maybe she just climbed up there and I awoke at her first complaint. Maybe she’d been moaning for the past 20 minutes. Maybe she climbed up there the night before and slept there all night, waking to futilely cry every hour or so. However long she’d been up there, I plucked her off the railing, set her on the ground, and she immediately ran back to bed and laid down. Then she realized the sun was up and she could bound into the living room to play.

Climbing is becoming a major problem with Abbie. She might fall and hurt herself, but more importantly I’m running out of places to hide things. Today she discovered how to climb into the twins’ Pack ‘N Play. That Pack ‘N Play was one of my last bastions of secrecy. I usually feed the twins right next to their Pack ‘N Play, and it’s a great place to throw things that I don’t want Abbie to have without having to go to the trouble of moving my lower body. The bassinet area is ideal for holding Abbie’s Duplo bucket when I get sick of her dumping out the blocks and leaving most of them on the floor. The changing area stores the remotes well; they stay out of Abbie’s clutches and I can still access them when my basketball game goes to commercial. The side pockets keep beverages beyond her reach, whether it’s milk for the twins, water for me, or something with a little extra kick for Ellie after a rough day at the hospital.

Now I’ve lost that hiding space. I caught her climbing into the Pack ‘N Play while feeding the twins. I told her to stop, that she’s being naughty; she took that information, ran a cost-benefit analysis, and resumed climbing into the crib. I decided to finish feeding the twins and scold her later. Within seconds the bassinet was covered in Duplos. A minute later my television remote was in her mouth as she continued her scientific experiment to determine exactly how wet a remote can be and still work.

I’m running out of high places to leave things. I used to be able to keep the dog’s daily food ration on top of her kennel, but Abbie discovered how to access it by climbing on the couch. I used to be able to hide my CD’s behind her toy box, but now she can climb over her toy box to scatter jewel cases throughout the living room. I used to be able to keep the cats safe on top of the couches, but now there’s nowhere on the main floor where they can fall asleep, confident that their fur won’t be pulled.

Even her bedroom is running out of hiding places. She climbed on her changing table tonight. The changing table is where I hide all of my dangerous creams, lotions, and other diaper changing implements. If I have to spend money to replace any of them because she swallowed them when she should have been sleeping, I’m going to be upset.