Up, up, and away...

Twenty minutes flat.

That's how long it took tonight for Little Miss K to figure out how to climb stairs. Thank goodness I had an extra baby gate stashed away for just this special occasion. We'll work on practicing climbing the first couple of stairs together, when I can watch her--since going up is so much easier than coming down--and the rest of the time the baby gate will be set up at the very bottom of the staircase. I'm glad our staircase is carpeted, but so not glad that most of the staircase is "open", with a big ol' vertical gap between each step. Hopefully that punkin head can't fit through the gap. We'll soon find out, I guess.

The crazy thing is, she's only been crawling for the past three weeks or so. Yes, she's nearly fourteen months old. Before, she had no use for crawling since she scooted everywhere on her butt...so much more efficient when you can scoot carrying a toy in each hand. And I'll tell you, that girl scooted fast. Especially on linoleum. SO much fun to watch! I'm glad I took some video of it while I could. Now she crawls--fast--everywhere. Her pediatrician wasn't concerned as long as she was "moving with purpose", and boy, was she. I was so relieved once she started crawling because I really just wanted to see her crawl! I was so sure she was just going to skip that step and go right to walking. As it is, she loves to walk around holding onto the handle of her push toy, and she really moves! She cruises like crazy and has started standing for a few seconds here and there without holding on. But so far, as far as I know, she hasn't taken those first unassisted steps. It won't be long now, I'm sure. Maybe just a matter of taking a "leap" of faith, a matter of confidence. I'll be so excited to witness that! I'm sure it's just around the corner...

But first, the scooting:

Yikes.