Here's our quandry for the day. I think I've known since before she was born that Sariah was a little monkey, and now there's no denying her ability to climb onto almost anything. She's quite the little tumbler too, she loves sommer saults. All this would be fine, EXCEPT...
She likes to look out the window. She's already bent the blinds on one of her windows in her room. Not a huge deal, but if I wanted to keep the windows open, I couldn't have her pressing her nose against the screen and having the possibility of her tumbling to her doom. So, since her bed was right next to the window, we just scooted it a couple feet away. Problem solved? Um, no. Sariah's next feat was to climb from her bed to her night stand diagonally so she could get back to the window. I found her this ways twice before the night stand had to be relocated.
Okay, problem solved, right? WRONG. She has been climbing out of bed, so I removed her stool and set it over by her desk (bad move mom). Of course, she doesn't need the stool anymore to get in and out of bed, so that didn't slow her down. In fact, it just enabled her to then (and this is what I found this morning) get out of bed, walk over to the stool, climb up the stool, open the keyboard drawer on her desk, climb INTO the drawer, get on top of the desk, scatter all the books off the desk and knock over the lamp in her goal to get to the OTHER WINDOW. Which she was looking out of this morning.
I guess I should've seen it coming, she's been pulling out the drawers of the dressers and sitting in them lately when I'm not looking. (Bad habit!) So now, I've removed the stool completely (it works well in the bathroom anyways.) And the books now live on top of the dresser instead of the desk, but frankly, I'm sure she'll find a way if she REALLY wants to get up there.
So anybody have any ideas on how to keep my monkey grounded? Is there even a way? I don't know of one. Doug thinks we should just enroll her in gymnastics, which she'd probably be good at. And just so you know, I made her clean her room up with me before nap. That's my Sariah, quite the handful!
6 comments:
decide how important it is to you guys to keep the books away first of all. Abs & Blaine have age-appropriate books scattered all over their rooms and all of us clean them out now and then. In the meantime, we often catch them reading the books which we figure is a good thing. Neither of them will even to go bed without a pile of books next to the pillow. She's going to look out the windows regardless so i would ditch the blinds to reduce the strangulation hazard and put her bed next to the window so she can look out. This means you can't open the windows but it keeps her from climbing dangerously all over furniture. Don't put a tall bookcase in there unless you screw it to the wall. Good luck.
love ya,
=0)jess
ps: i read your blog!
My monkeys started climbing at about that age, too. And, they still do it. You can't really stop them (although eventually through teaching and discipline I suppose you might be able to--I'll let you know if it ever works that way for me! :) )
At that age, I actually installed baby locks on their dresser drawers that I didn't want them getting into. And, I made sure the only books they could reach (ie, that were in their room) were the board book variety. Nicer books stayed in our room.
In this house, I bought window locks and made it such that windows could only open about 3 inches.
At about age 2, my boys would climb out of their cribs, and balance on the crib rail to reach pictures on a (high!) shelf on the wall. This is a monkey sort of age. Good luck keeping her from killing herself!
I never did figure out how you climbed to the top shelf of the closet with nothing but a mattress sitting on the floor in your room. Sariah must come by it naturally!
Yeah, the monkey thing is just going to happen. Elena and Joseph like to look out windows, too, and the only thing I can do is remind them that feet have to stay on the floor (or, in your case, bed). I agree that they need a stable base to stand on, and those window locks sound good, too.
I get really nervous around our windows (Mommy *must* be able to see you, no hiding behind curtains) because they're cheap and old, and some of the panes are loose. Yeah, I know, but they never fix them, just caulk them.
you could always just move out most of her furniture...just give her a mattress on the floor. make the room a sariah-size-room (think montessori theory). as for the windows...if you really want them open you could always try to replace hers with the kind that opens from the top, or try and teach her "window manners" during the daytime.
I say put her in the closet. Then you won't have any windows to tempt her! :) Problem solved! Or tie her legs together...
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