Mount Everest

(that diaper must give her baby super strength)

Okay, okay. So we still haven't installed baby gates, despite E.V. being able to crawl for over three months now. I'd blame Ryan's traveling, my indecisiveness and our busy schedules, but, in reality, the fact is that we simply just haven't gotten around to it. We haven't had any issues, especially since upstairs the bathroom (read: bathTUB) is directly across from the staircase, meaning that Emma Vance's beelines for the stairs inevitably take a detour into the bathroom to visit her toys. And as for the bottom of the stairs, well, E.V. hadn't ever really taken an interest in them--until last week.

At the time, I had a stack of clothes waiting at the bottom of the stairs to be run up to the master bedroom, and I suppose they caught her eye. She crawled herself over to them, dismantled them as I watched from afar, and then started climbing up the stairs, calling out, "Dada! Dada!" as she went. Curious to see how far she could get, I followed her closely behind, but her excitement gave her so much momentum that I didn't even have to reach out to catch or steady her even once. In one fail swoop our little lady had scaled the baby version of Mount Everest! I couldn't believe it; I had always assumed that we'd have to teach her how to climb the stairs, but she was a natural. The down side? Now she wants to do it. All. The. Time.

I don't mind to much because it definitely uses up some of her seemingly endless energy, and it is endearing to hear her yelling out to warn Ryan that she's coming for him (and, yes, when she reaches the top of the stairs she almost always heads straight for his office to find him). However, I do worry about her attempting to scale Amityville Everest on her own (which apparently she tried to do while Ryan's mom watched her today), so consider our procrastination over. Baby gates coming soon!