defying death

Olivia has a great love of climbing and especially for our staircase...a LONG straight-shot staircase.  She is a very coordinated/precise little thing and has picked up the skill surprisingly fast.  For weeks on end though, I have spent a large part of my day sitting on the stairs as she climbed up and down, just waiting for that one time that she slipped and fell.  But, she never does.  Not even when she climbs up and sits on the top just bouncing up and down and laughing at me still sitting in the middle of the staircase.  Not even when when I would startle her (still sitting at her favorite perch at the tippy top of the stairs) as I was convinced she was on her way down, and was running up the stairs as fast as I could to grab her...usually hollering "STOP!!!" along the way too!  She just stares at me like I'm crazy when this happens!  :)  

So after weeks of the doing this...and hopping over the gates at the top and bottom of the stairs that we'd put up when I didn't have the time (or the mental patience) to sit and watch her defy death once again, I decided I needed to give her a chance.  So now, she is up and down the stairs all day long as much as she pleases, and I get a whole lot more done during the day!  It makes me so happy to see her growing and becoming so independent...only because she is still my cuddler and still always comes back for a hug and a pat on the back - for both me and her!  She almost always pats my back when I hug her and it MELTS my heart!!!

So now, we're about a week into her new-found freedom.  She still is on the stairs constantly, but she now LOVES to stop mid-way up and stand holding the rails as she peers through to see who she can spot down below.  She'll jabber away to them, happy as a clam to be up higher than everyone else.  But the past few days, I've noticed that she is combining this freedom with her other new skill of standing alone (meaning not holding on to ANYTHING!!!).  Talk about a heart stopper when you see your teeny tiny baby girl, standing completely unsupported on the stairs, giggling and holding her hands up as if to say "Look Mom, no hands!!!"   AAAHHHHH!  I am now back to my sitting on the stairs, everytime I hear her pause on her way up or down.  This girl is going to do me in!  :)