"How did she get up there?"
She's tiny...she's light-weight, she's flexible as a rubber band. She can scale six foot book cases in a minute flat. She can craft a ladder out of books/pillows/boots/dolls/trains/tissue boxes/etc. to climb to the top of the TV center. She has been known to give her mother gray hair and her father a look of pride.
She's SPIDERGIRL....and she scares the heck outta me.
My litte girl climbs EVERYTHING. So what, you say? All kids like to climb, you retort?
You. Don't. Understand.
EVERYTHING and ANTHING can be used to hoist her body to wherever she likes. She's the mini-McGuiver of ladder making. Sometimes, I can't believe what she uses to climb. I've seen her scale the OUTSIDE of a stair case, nearly to the top before I found her. She gets into places and I have no idea how she got there.
One day I might find her clinging from the ceiling.
My children can't have anything in their room that can be used for climbing...no bookcases, no chairs or tables, no toychests...heck, even books can be stacked and used as a platform. She's even used her brother's train to climb up to the top of her dresser. She's even used her brother! Marcus was quite insulted when he realized his sister saw his back as a means to climb up to the TV!
Baby gates are just a 'bump in the road' to her. She climbs right over them, resting her dainty little foot on nothing but air...it's the strength and flexibility in her lower ab's that gets her over. While it terrifies me that almost no place in my home is safe for my daughter, I can't help but feel rush of pride when I see her climb something impossible.
I wish I had abs like that.
Her last triumph was the top of Mount Kitchen...the play kitchen in their room. Assessed it, scaled it and proceeded to try to do happy dance at the top. Fortunately for her (and me) I heard her saying "No, no don't!" to her brother because he saw his opportunity to get back at his sister for turning him into a ladder...he was shaking Mount Kitchen with all his might.
I stopped the earthquake just seconds before my daughter tumbled to the playroom floor. To think this all happened before nap time. My husband suggested perhaps we buy an indoor gym.
I'm sure she'll love it. She's been searching for something to aide her climb of Mount Refrigerator in our real kitchen for quite a while.
My husband decided to lock all of the drawers in their room with child locks. This way she can't open them to make a staircase up to the top of the chest. I thought to myself, "A-HA! Now we've gotcha! No more climbing for you missy!" I did feel bad though when she realized her Daddy had taken her jungle gym away. My usually sweet-natured little girl threw a fit...rolling around on the floor and throwing her toys. Still, I felt victorious and figured, problem solved!
My victory was short-lived.
The other day I watched as she climbed to the top of her brother's dresser to explore the humidifier using nothing but the knobs on the closed and locked drawers. (See posted picture at beginning of entry).
Rock climbing-101.
I picked my jaw up off the floor, took a picture of her latest climb and gingerly picked her up from the dresser. I planted both her feet on the floor saying, "No climb!". She just looked up at me like, "Are you kidding? That was sweet!".
Then I went online to surf Craig's list for an indoor jungle gym. I also looked into rock climbing at the Y.
Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
- The Mamasaurus
