Into Everything...

I am not sure when it exactly happened but it seems that from the moment we returned to the UK from our extended visit to the US over the holidays, Crosby had quickly become interested in everything and suddenly she was into everything in our house. In late January, she mastered the art of crawling up the stairs to the second story (or the first floor as they say here in England) and so stair gates were quickly purchased. Also, since she is able to pull herself up and stand quite well with one hand on anything to keep her steady, all cabinets, tables, other pieces of furniture, etc. are of great interest. Everything in the kitchen is especially interesting because there is food in there for snacks! These days I feel like I blink, and once I look up, I have found my child into another pocket of the house, exploring something I didn't even know was possible. It is keeping me on my toes but it is actually a lot of fun right now. I am enjoying this stage much more than I did parts of the previous stages for sure.

Crosby climbing the stairs (pre-stair gate). She is able to stand up and reach our "snack basket" in our kitchen island. It is a favorite activity to unpack all of the snacks in this basket while I am trying to cook dinner in the evenings. The stair gate went up and we now have one unhappy little girl who sits at the bottom of the stairs and tries with all of her might to move that gate out of her way!Into the baking cabinet she goes. Rooting around for some good ingredients!And it's not just the kitchen that's of interest - Crosby has discovered how much fun she has while playing in the curtains of the living room. Crosby finds the linen and ziploc bag cabinet in the kitchen. She "rearranges," aka pulls everything out on to the floor. Crosby crawled into the kitchen (very quickly I might add!) and she immediately tore into Scott's fruit and fibre cereal box. She spilled it all over the floor and then proceeded to eat it. If you saw her in action, you might think we never feed her with the way she ravages through the food! Even climbing into the tupperware toy storage bins is new and fun right now. After coming home from a joint birthday celebration the other weekend, Crosby somehow managed to pull apart the bag of the supplies in the dining room while we weren't looking!

I have to laugh while posting these pictures because if I saw these photos from someone else, I might think they never watch their child. Some of these incidents (mostly in the kitchen) have actually taken place under my direct supervision...I will be trying to cook dinner and toys I bring to her are of no interest, so as long as she is not causing any harm to herself, the food, or the kitchen items, I will let her sometimes "rearrange" the towels, etc. while I am there. Other times, she really is just that quick that she scurries out of one room and into another before I've realized what has happened. Fool me once, but now I know (some of) her tricks, so I can pretty easily guess where she is going and what she is going to get into before she does it. However, when Dad is on duty these days, it's pretty funny to see how Crosby knows that he is not aware of how quick she is and what tricks she has up her sleeve, so those make for even more interesting situations.....