Yodel-lay-hee-hoo

As it turns out, I have given birth to a little baby mountain climber. I will most likely go down in the books as being the mother of the youngest conqueror of Everest. My son is a born climber and it's been scaring the living daylights out of me!

I can't go shopping with him anymore by myself because he CLIMBS out of the shopping cart. Child restraints? HA! He just turns around and shimmies right out! You should have seen me in Target the other day....looking like a completely frazzled and about to have a meltdown mom who was throwing random items in the cart for her baby to hold just to keep him entertained long enough to forget about his mission to get out of the shopping cart currently holding him prisoner. The lady at the checkout thought I was rather odd when I handed her several items that I didn't intend on buying but had in my cart anyway to distract my almost 1 year old and make it through the store unscathed.

Well, ok, shopping carts can be avoided...but the 3 foot tall staircase/dining room blockade that I can barely step over....Austin can CLIMB over it in a matter of seconds! I added an extra box and suitcase recently (yeah, it's a ghetto blockade, but it works worked) to try and prevent this, but again I was fooled, what does he do but push the box and suitcase off the top and use them to help him climb down the other side...Super duper extra strength baby gate here we come!

And the other evening, I was in the bathroom getting ready for a dinner out and Ryan was in the living room watching football Austin. Next thing I know, I see a reflection in the mirror of a little baby crawling across our giant bed. He had gotten out of sight for mere seconds and climbed the pet stairs onto our bed! Poor Lucy is just going to have to jump from now on...

I could go on telling you all about the other climbing stories...like when he takes all the books off the bookshelf and tries to climb up it (talk about total mommy freak out moment), or when he climbs up and stands ON his rocking chair, or when he pushes the TV tray or empty toy box or previously mentioned rocking chair across the room and uses them as steps to climb on the sofa or coffee table, or how when he gets on the sofa he tries to climb from it to the end table....I really could go on and on, but I'll stop here...

The most recent climbing adventure happened just this evening and this one I am really not happy about. It's the one place I thought I could keep him contained for 10-15 minutes at a time, the one place I thought he really enjoyed staying for awhile and not trying to escape, the place we go every night around 7pm.....

Austin has learned to CLIMB out of the bathtub....

and crawl away.