Up and Down

Erin is developing stair-climbing skills. It's maddening. She absolutely refuses to be carried up or down stairs anymore, and she insists on tackling every set of steps completely on her own. The problem with this toddler defiance is the fact that, while she can manage to climb upstairs without too much difficulty, she is not even close to mastering the downward descent. I've tried to convince her turn onto her tummy and slide down feet first, but that is completely unacceptable, simply because that is NOT the way that everyone else does it. She wants to walk down by herself, regardless of the fact that with each step she teeters on the brink of disaster. She now even refuses to hold my hand on her way down. "MO!!" she cries, and pushes my hand away. ("Mo" is code for "no", in case you haven't already guessed).

One flight of stairs can take up to 10 minutes. And when it's 8:15am, and school starts in 30 minutes, and no one has had breakfast yet, sometimes it's necessary to scoop her up and carry her, kicking and screaming, down to the breakfast table. There she sits for the next 15 minutes, hollering and crying, suffering the indignity of being forced to do something that she did not want to do.

And so it goes. Until she completely masters this skill, I think we'll be getting up 10 minutes earlier each morning, simply to allow time for Erin to get down to breakfast.

And who's idea was it to put our playroom up in the attic, anyway?