Little Climber

Hilary and I have gone through a sort of "five stages of..." with Brynna right now. It's not the five stages of death, it's the five stages of "Holy Crap Brynna's Climbing!" Behold:

It started with Brynna attempting to climb up, say, a chair leading up to the dining room table. Unsuccessful the first time or two, you think that all is well and safe. This, my friends, is the first stage: Denial.

Next comes Anger, when you realize that, yes, she's standing on the dining room table, and you had nothing to do with this sudden change in potential energy. "Brynna, NO!!!" you say as forcefully as you can muster without shrieking, whisking her back down to a lower gravitational state. You've dodged a bullet, you think: she managed that just by a fluke of furniture arrangement, luck, and ignorant courage.

That is, of course, until about five minutes later, or the next day, or when playing outside, and you see that she's right back to it. Stool up to the kitchen island? Ladder on her jungle gym? Nooooo problem. You move on to Bargaining, but this is a short lived and largely futile period. How can you negotiate with a toddler about anything, let alone express the danger of which she is blissfully unaware?

This leads to Depression. Without constant, impossible vigilance, and unable to cajole, intimidate, or educate your child to not do such a foolish thing, how can you possibly prevent the tragic accident that must occur?

Finally, realizing that she is, in fact, rather good at it, and that you can prevent it, you arrive where we are now: Acceptance. This isn't exactly the same as submission or defeat. We still will spot her when we are able, but we won't stop her. In fact, we felt comfortable enough to take a few steps back and capture these images from the edge of parenting:







Next stop: El Capitan? Eiger Nordwand? Trango Tower? Who knows?