"I hafin’ touble heeya"
“I hafin’ touble heeya.” This what Jess said to me this morning as she was perched atop the 5 gallon wheat bucket in the pantry (translation: I’m having trouble here). I came running downstairs after I heard a screechy “heylp” to find her contemplating her descent from the pantry shelves. She fell off the bucket the other day and ever since then she’s been a bit hesitant to make the rather large step down on her own. She likes to climb up there so she can “see somepin'” and so “Dessie pick it” (a snack). Once she gets up there she often lets out a really thoughtful, “Hmmm…” as she looks all around the shelves at the various treasures hidden in the pantry. This morning she selected “baby moshmellows” as well as a granola bar (which she’d apparently absconded earlier because it was sitting at her place at the table). I admit that she may have been driven to navigating the pantry shelves because her mother starting hiding all the sweet stuff at the top, so as to encourage her to choose the healthy snacks at eye level.
Even without that motivation though, I’m sure it was only a matter of time. This girl climbs on anything she can. Me (climbing up my legs and flipping over), her crib (which no longer has a rail keeping her contained, she just tries to climb the side for fun). She’ll shimmy over the half wall downstairs launching herself from the loveseat and landing on the chair on the other side. We moved the couch out to decrease the odds that she’d injure herself as she climbed over the back of it to the windows behind it.
At the park she’s notoriously daring on any apparatus with bars. She’ll happily run right past the steps and make her way carefully up the climbing bars up to the play structure platform. She’s still working out how to get down but I’m actually pretty impressed with her mobility on those things and how fearless she is. She climbs the dresser in her room and she routinely climbs around on the garden planter but the pantry has been her latest Everest. We don’t condone her climbing but she seems to have a mind of her own and her antics sure do keep us entertained. This girl is a kick.
