Reaching New Heights

Tanner and Abigail have officially entered the "climbing" stage. As you will see in the video below it began with the kitchen chairs. Then their friend Parker (thanks a lot) taught them how to climb onto the couch. Now they enjoy climbing on the bench in the kitchen. I really don't mind all the climbing, I find it somewhat entertaining, it is the standing up on these things that scares me to death. Tanner and Abigail have both experienced small tumbles from atop these pieces of furniture, but it is only a matter of time before one hits their head on the edge of the coffee table after standing on the couch. Matt and I repeatedly tell them to "sit" when we see them standing up...and for the most part they obey. Abigail can be sneaky at times and will wait until you approach her before she sits down and will immediately stand up again once your back is turned. One afternoon Abigail was playing in the living room while I was baking cookies in the kitchen (she should have been napping like her brother) when I realized that it was unusually quiet. I walked into the living room and found her standing up in the middle of the coffee table! She looked at me as if to say, "TA DA!"

Matt and I are taking the "three strikes" approach to this issue. Tanner and Abigail get three chances to follow our direction of "sit" before they are removed from whatever piece of furniture they are standing on. I am not sure if this is the best approach to break this habit but we will try it out and see how it goes.

Note: This week Tanner stood up by himself for the first time (without using something to pull himself up)! We were in our Music Together class and he was sitting in the middle of the room watching as the rest of the students and parents marched around in a circle. All of a sudden he put his hands on the floor and pushed himself up to march with the rest of the class! YEAH!