The Stairs

When Josh and I went house hunting after we were married, we were pretty set on the idea of a single story home. It's easier to heat/cool and we knew we wanted to have kids and stairs can be a bit of a hassle, if not dangerous. We figured, however, that if we found a 2 story house that we loved, we'd definitely want the master bedroom upstairs with the rest of the room since we knew we'd be going back and forth to the baby's room a lot. So what did we do? We bought a 2 story home with the master down stairs. What can we say. We fell in love with the house.
Well, we have so far survived the constant trips up and down the stairs with JP in arm to change his diaper or retrieve a toy or whatnot. In fact I'm sure it's made us both stronger physically and cardiovascularly. We were also reassured by the fact that the way this house is set up the stairs have a switch back so should one of us or, God forbid, one of our progeny, go tumbling down, we would at least only have to worry about half of the total potential distance to the ground floor.

This morning, I have been letting JP explore the downstairs on his own. He's been doing this for a little over a week now. (This picture is during NBT last week) He usually hangs out at the little spot at the base of the stairs. I set up some toys in the area and he practices making cute little baby messes. It's great. In fact, he can and has busied himself for 2 whole hours while I have putzed around in the kitchen making baby food and dinner. This kid is amazing. I just love that he is already pretty independent. I put him in his usual spot with a few toys, went to use the restroom and returned to find him on the 3rd step!!!!! In about 30 seconds this kid figured out the stairs and climbed right on up. I'm pretty sure this is the very first time he has ever even BEEN on the stairs, let alone tried to climb them. So, like any good mom, I immediately placed him on the ground, grabbed my camera and recorded his second attempt.

This little brat climbed, completely unassisted, from the ground to the landing in roughly 60 seconds.

We should have bought a single story house.