Matthew the Daredevil

Just when you think it is safe to leave the room for a minute with a newly mobile baby, near disaster strikes! Matthew and Natalie are in the living room playing and watching TV, so I think it is a great time to run upstairs to collect up all of the bottles and glasses for a load in the dishwasher. Well, while I’m up here I’ll answer an email from Grandma saying that she can come down a watch the kids while I have jury duty (ugh, more on that later, I’m sure), and as I’m telling her that Matthew is a good crawler, but it is like watching a turtle run a race, Natalie comes into the office to announce:

“Matthew’s trying to climb the stairs.”

“How cute,” I think to myself, picturing him up on his knees with his hands on the first flight and a contemplating look on his face, not sure what to do next. As that's all he's ever done.

I click send, gather up all of the bottles and head for the stairs. Natalie is ahead of me and is looking over the side of the banister at Matthew down below. When I get to the top of the stairs, the picture above was what I saw! Matthew had made it all the way up to the third step… from the living room in a matter of a minute. I dropped everything, bottles bouncing at my feet, as I literally jumped down the stairs to “catch” him, as I pictured him reeling backwards as he peered up at me with a proud smile of accomplishment streaking across his face.

Was it close? No, he didn’t look like he was going to fall, but for someone that has trouble crawling around on his hands and knees, it was only a matter of time before he would have tumbled backwards down the stairs to an abrupt tile-floored stop at the bottom.

Kara would have certainly revoked my father license for sure.

Everyone's okay, so we can laugh about it now, ahem. Right?



*Please note that I didn’t run and get my camera to take the shot above. I “rescued” him first and staged this picture under my close supervision!