Dealing With Gravity

Including the last home we lived in, a transitional abode that we rented for a few months, baby has lived in three houses. All three have been two-stories; all three have had staircases. We have made a variety of efforts to protect baby from the perils presented by the stairs: gates, constant surveillance, and lessons at climbing and descending stairs (starting when she was about nine months). Today, for the first time, she climbed all the way up and all the way down without any nudges or hand-holding. I maintained a distance of about eighteen inches, in order to catch her if need be, but she did all of the physical and mental work, guiding herself with one hand on the wall on the way down. She knew, even before I began clapping, that getting down on her own was an accomplishment. While today represented an important milestone, there is a lot of teaching and learning on the stairs still to do.