The Art of Stair Climbing

Addison can't walk. She just starting crawling at 11 months, so she probably won't be walking for awhile. I'm okay with that. She's a terror on all fours, so I can't imagine how she'll be on two legs.

But what she can do is climb up stairs.

Yup, that's right. The munchkin is on the move and climbing up stairs. It was the Friday after Christmas, we had been gone since Monday of that week and it was the first day we were back home. Rob and Addie were in the family room opening boxes and sorting through Christmas presents, while I was in the kitchen cleaning up a bit. I hear my name, turn around, and there is our 14-month halfway up the biggest flight of stairs in our house. She didn't struggle. She didn't stumble. She moved easily up the stairs like she had been doing it for months. Rob followed her up and she made it happily up to the kitchen, proud of herself.

And since then, we have had a happy girl who likes to climb stairs.

The only thing is that she can't go back down. She gets to the top, throws her toys to the bottom then looks at me expecting me to go get them. Then when she's ready to go back down, she climbs into my lap to carry her back down. Up to this point, she at least hasn't attempted going back down. She just sits there. But her inability to go back down makes me a little nervous.

We have tried teaching her how to go back down feet first, but she doesn't get it. She doesn't like not being able to see where she's going I guess. She's still little and we have to follow her from floor to floor when she decides to climb back up, but I'm not going to lie, it will be nice when she figures out the going back down. I'll definitely feel a little better.

I would gladly take suggestions. Did your kid just figure it out how to go back down? Did you teach them? And if you taught them then how did you go about doing it? I know she'll figure out how to get back down. She'll learn and we'll feel better about her climbing up, knowing that she can also climb down (although she won't be doing it alone for awhile still, in case any of you were worrying). It's amazing how quickly she's growing and learning new things. And climbing stairs is just one of those things that she has figured out. I guess it's hard to believe that I already have a 15 month old [tomorrow].