Going up (and down)

For several weeks Madeline has been pretty adept at climbing the stairs. In a matter of seconds she'll climb halfway up, stopping only briefly to look over her shoulder (where she always finds one of her parents, of course).

But it's been only recently that she's been able to get back down the stairs. I didn't realize she had been practicing, but yesterday she was going down almost as fast as she got up.

She gets plenty of practice climbing up and down by using the ledge between our home's entryway and the living room. She's been getting up on the ledge without difficulty for a long time, but has had a little more trouble getting down. I'm thankful, however, that she at least realizes there's an elevation change and doesn't walk or crawl off the ledge at full speed!

To get down the ledge, she initially approached slowly, lowered herself onto her stomach, placed both hands on the lower level and then slid the rest of her body down with a thud. But this week she's taken a new, more inventive tack. She approaches much more quickly and confidently, but now she stops at the edge, turns herself 180 degrees and lowers her feet down. Once her toes touch the ground she swivels around again so she's facing forward and is ready to go. In fact, she is often able to walk away from the ledge because her feet are hitting the ground first and she doesn't have to pull herself up.

One of the most entertaining aspects of watching her motor about the house is watching her work to solve problems. One of the least entertaining is that she always wants to climb!