Climbing

UPDATE 1/15/10 - In case you're wondering where we've gone from this post, here's an update.

Dash is still in his crib; however, we were Tyler was able to rig the crib to be lowered even more. (We bought ourselves a few more inches.) We also stuffed his bumper down between the crib and mattress, so that only an inch or so remains over the top of the mattress. Tyler and I concluded that perhaps the nice, padded, $180 bumper I just HAD to have was so "nice and padded" that it was almost a perfect "step stool" for our little man since it didn't even scrunch when he stepped on it!

And after consulting my bro, Justin and sis-n-law, Misty, (and finding out that our niece Caitlyn did the same thing at almost the same age -- apparently, we have early climbers in our family), we are completely aware that this is only a temporary fix. Apparently, according to Misty, you simply cannot ask a toddler to stay in their bed like a nice little boy or girl. Geez, toddlers these days...

Anyways, we bought ourselves some time to plan our next move. We know that it's a whole new ball game when you take the crib away, and frankly, we're not ready for that. So if Dash continues to climb or grows an inch or two, we can only hope that he learns to safely climb out of the crib without injuring himself.

Original Post 1/8/10

It was really cute, when a few weeks ago, Dash learned to successfully climb in and out of his own, toddler-sized chair.

It was almost just as cute, when soon after that, he learned to climb onto our chairs and couches. (We just assumed this was a natural progression/growth development for a 13-month-old and celebrated his climbing along with him.)

Then, just this week, we became slightly more nervous about the climber on our hands, when we realized that Dash can climb up onto our bed by himself. (Having a built-in step stool around the perimeter of the bed was not something we factored in when we purchased our platform bed a few months back.) Given the chance (aka one of us leaves the bedroom door open), we'll usually find Dash all grins, relaxing our on bed.

But today, we are in full-blown panic mode, because Dash has mastered the art of climbing (and falling, apparently) out of his crib. Lord, help us. Yes, it was almost as dramatic as one would imagine...Dash was taking his morning nap (or so we thought), Tyler heard a thump, then crying, and then was met at Dash's bedroom door by none-other than Dash himself.

Fortunately, among Tyler's qualities is the EMT certification and among Dash's an ability to fall out of his crib without hurting himself too severely. We're happy to say that a few Vanilla Wafers fixed the problem--on Dash's end! Tyler and I are still figuring out our next move while Dash takes his afternoon nap on a pallet on the floor.