Julia's 1st steps

Julia took her first steps the day before Anna was born. The next evening at the hospital she tried her little shuffle again. (See pix above.) She is slowly working up to taking more steps and when she starts to walk her face lights up and she gets so excited as she moves along.

In the midst of the 1st steps and Anna being born, Julia also decided to take an interest in the stairs. I really hadn't had to worry about it before. She had climbed one or two stairs in the past, but I never had to worry about whether she was going to try and go up the whole flight. Well, one day this past week (with me behind her) she decided to climb the whole way up from the basement to the 1st floor. I knew that meant we had better watch the other stairs carefully because she surely was going to try those next. (Get a gate, you say? Well, we've never had one and I was kind of hoping to not have to go there. But I am thinking that we may now have too many kids for me to adequately supervise...so the days of no gate may just be over.) Anyways, the other day I was in the laundry room and Julia was playing quietly in the living room like she often does. I checked on her once - with the thought that she may have gone over to the stairs and I need to keep a better eye on her now. She was in the same place, playing quietly in the living room. Literally 2 minutes later I checked on her again...uh-oh, no Julia. I ran over to the stairs prepared to see her STARTING to climb them and, to my surprise, she was at the top! My heart skipped a beat. Thank goodness she is a good little climber!

Anyways, Miss Julia is really on the move now. Just in time for Mom to be spending a lot of time nursing and not able to move to contain her. So...we did come up with a makeshift gate. We have a table that fits perfectly across the stairs. At least the stair climbing can be in control and I don't have to worry what she is doing when I am nursing.