stairs, the final frontier

fussy has been a slow baby. he has yet to prove to the majority of the world that he can crawl. he just doesn't care to. it seemed all fine and well with me. i was a bit worried, but found an immobile baby is a good baby.

harry started really walking at 8 months old. chilly was more like 10 months old when he started taking off. fussy pulls himself up but doesn't really care to take a step. he's going to be a year old in a couple of weeks. but you see the difference right? mobility.

fussy scoots. you remember the video from a couple of posts back right? we live in a split level house. for our first 2 babies, we lived in a flat house. with no stairs. this is by far a stair-y house. my nephew once mentioned that we must be very wealthy to have a house with 4 levels. apparently most 10 year olds don't see ratty furniture, holes in the walls, and peeling paint.

for the past couple of days, i can't keep fussy from the stairs. it is his first exploration of the day. i worry that he will fall down them. i worry that he will crawl up them, and then fall down them. okay, he has. hour after hour he's on the stairs. learning how to top the flight. i have a baby gate which i put up to keep him from going down the stairs, but it doesn't quite fit going up. but then, if i am in the kitchen with him, i really need to have two gates. and we all know how cheap i am. since i don't have enough gates, and since he is almost 1, we have been trying to teach him how to go down. he doesn't like to roll onto his belly to slide down. so i've been pulling his feet to the edge and scooting him to fall on the step with his bum. he hasn't liked the options. he voted to either fall down, or cry until i come and get him. or sit there.

an interesting thing happened today though. fussy went up. to the top of the top. and then before i could "rescue" him, he started going down on his bum. scooting to the edge and falling one step at a time, landing on his diapered bum. then he climbs back up, and scoots down again. then he goes to the plant, pulls out all the dirt, climbs back up the stairs and does it all again.

it is so fun to have a baby. even in my sarcastic moments, i see how cool it is that he learned for himself.

stairs have been conquered.


*as a side note. as i was typing this up, he got into the plant again. since harry is off track, he wanted to help clean up all the dirt. so he picked up fussy and brought him down to me. and ran upstairs to vacuum. meanwhile fussy sort of chased/raced him back upstairs. at least harry doesn't wonder how come the house is a total mess most days*