Current mood: worried
Mia learned to climb the stairs awhile back but we rarely let her run loose enough to attempt to scale them on her own.. until now!
The older she is getting the more its becoming a challenge to keep her entertained in her confined little area in the living room (which is blocked off by a baby gate). So lately I have been letting her have free reign of the whole downstairs area. I of course close the bathroom and guest bedroom doors, but she still loves to run around. It was great at first, however, she has rediscovered the stairs.
I guess its sort of my fault. With my surgery recovery I could not pick her up and carry her to bed upstairs, so instead I would let her climb them herself while I supervised. I only did this a couple of times but she got better and better at it. Then the whole Grandpa incident happened where he accidentally took his eyes off of her for literally a couple of mins. and she ended up scaling them on her own all the way to to the top. That gave her confidence BIG TIME!!! Now whenever there are stairs anywhere, ie. the duck pond, the playground, she loves to climb them. She can't however go back down and usually waits for one of us to grab her hands and help guide her down.
She is so attracted to the stairs now, I no longer use the baby gate to block her in the livingroom but instead use it on the stairs so she can't sneak up there if I am not looking. Of course she still tries too get up there which ever way she can.
So that brings me to today. I have been really nervous about her climbing the stairs I don't like it but I know despite my eagle eye she will find ways up there unsupervised eventually. What really concerned me is the fact she doesn't know how to get back down on her own. All I could keep imagining is her waiting for someone to help her, and with no one around she would attempt to climb back down them and tumble because she doesn't know how. So I decided against my best judgment and out of logical thinking rather than Mama thinking.. that I would teach her how to climb back down on her own, just in case of an incident like I mentioned earlier.
So I let her scale the stairs and now she goes up them at lightening speed! Pretty impressive actually! Once she was at the top she wanted to go back down and she reached for me. I held her hands and guided her back down. We did this a couple of times, each time I held her lighter and lighter. Then she went back up but this time I when she reached for me I didn't grab her hands, instead I let her figure out a way to get back down on her own (of course I was below her making sure wouldn't tumble down if she fell) She stood there and thought about it a bit, then slowly got on her hands and knees and slowly tired to go down, one foot at a time. Eventually she got a pretty good technique going and she was going back down them like a pro. She was so excited and proud of herself for doing this she kept going back up and down, up and down. I thought to myself, Oh-Oh what did I do??! but still I was glad to see she knew how to go back down.
Then Daddy came by, he was getting ready to take her out to the store with him when I called to him to show what Mia could do. He came up the stairs and right away Mia goes "DADA!!!!" all excited. (Too cute!) Then she showed him how she could go down the stairs on her own (of course I would spot her to make sure she didn't fall).
We got to the bottom of the stairs and Adrian then loaded up the car with what he needed for their little trip. I was watching Mia and I sat on the steps not allowing her to go back up past 3 steps. She started to play and I warned her "be careful" she knows this command as something she needs to be aware of. She slowed down a bit but still was goofing around then it unevitable happened... yep she fell. She only went down 1 step, and fell on the floor (we have carpet) slide ways. The fall and impact scared her and she started to cry and scream. I picked her up and comforted her and of course she was ok, just a tiny rug burn spot on her shoulder from landing on the carpet. She was fine but hopefully she learned a huge lesson. I am just glad it was only one step, but still I think that baby gate to block the stairs will become a perminate fixture now haha
