Raising Monkeys

At 9 months, Sabrina was my earliest walker. She wasn't a good walker, but by golly she wasn't crawling for anyone. Her early walking career involved a lot of falling down as evidenced by the fact that most of her size 12 month and 18 month clothing is bloodstained. She never met a coffee table she couldn't split her lip on.

But despite walking early she was still generally content to stay earthbound with the mere mortals.

Jamie on the other hand, could climb long before he could walk. We found him halfway up the stairs when he was about 5 months old. After I recovered from the heart failure I installed baby gates everywhere, which prompted him to learn the art of gate climbing. We plucked him off the second shelf of the bookcase shortly before or after that (my mind is foggy from the lack of sleep or possibly lack of oxygen that accompanies the abovementioned heart failure). After those incidents it was onward and mostly upward.

When my Mom would advise us to "put things up" to get them out of Jamie's reach, I would explain that we were running out of "up". Our next move was to velcro the knives to the ceiling.

We joked that sooner or later we would find him swinging from the ceiling fans. Thankfully he hasn't accomplished that (yet) and I am grateful that he can't read. We don't need to give him any ideas.

But I just always assumed that it was a boy thing.

But Meredith did this yesterday all on her own despite the fact she still isn't walking yet.

And now she's pretty much climbing everything. Stairs, couch, rocking chair, baskets, boxes, walls.........

Oh wait - that's just me.