BBJ Climbs...with a Purpose!

It started benignly enough. BBJ climbed on top of Daddy while he was doing his push ups. She loved how she swayed back and forth when he went up and down.

In the end, however, the addition of 25 pounds to his 50 push ups proved too much for him. (Score one for BBJ!)

The next day, BBJ decided to try her new skill out on her cousin. Granted, her cousin was conveniently wrapped up like a burrito at the time.

Hey, cousin E? You enjoying this? Eh? 'Cause I sure am! Let's do this more often!


Cousin E? Where you goin'? This is really fun!
In the end, Cousin E got away. BBJ was left to mull over the joy of being on top of something that was usually above her.
Once BBJ figured out that she could shimmy her way to the top of things, she started experimenting. Can I get up on this? No. How about this? Oh, yes! If I brace my arms here, I can swing my legs up to the side and get my knees on! (Serious - she doesn't stick her knee up and and climb like a normal baby. It looks like a gymnast on the horse, in slow motion.) She quickly mastered the armchair in the living room. I pushed it against the wall so she didn't knock it over - it reclines. From there, she figured out she could crawl over the arm, over the arm of the sofa, and voila! She can reach all the things I used to put on the top of the sofa to get them out of her reach. To make sure she had this maneuver down, she did laps for about half an hour - up the chair, over two arms, walk the length of the couch, climb down, up the chair, over two arms.....ok, we've done that 17 times. Let's reverse it now. Hmm...can't climb onto the couch yet. Ok, up the chair, over two arms, walk the length of the couch, walk it again...BACK over two arms, climb off the chair. Cool!

That was yesterday. This was this morning:
Enter one kitchen chair.
Hello, gorgeous!

Ok, brace my arms like this...swing my legs up...almost got it...just a little more....Woohoo! We made it!



Mama, I'm just so proud of myself. Aren't you proud of me? Aren't you proud of your little monkey? That's where I thought the journey would end. Proud to be in a big girl chair. Proud to have conquered the kitchen chair. Proud to be at the Big People Table.


I was wrong.

She's figured out the magic of "processes."

Those big black feet on the table? That's Santa. He's full of candy. She loves candy, ESPECIALLY chocolate. (Although, jelly beans, we discovered today, are a delightful alternative.)
She's a few steps shy of becoming her own natural disaster. Stand on the chair, onto the table...did you know she can push those chairs around? If she figures out how far she can push them...

I'm toast!