Picture a baby climbing this…

Today we had finally packed up all the Christmas decorations and had the boxes ready to load into the attic. Usually we prefer to do chores when the kids (or at least Molly) are sleeping. But we had to load the boxes into the attic during waking hours because the attic stairs are right next to the girls’ room, and it would be loud and disruptive to do it while they sleep. So we just took both kids upstairs into the hallway and tried to do it quickly before Molly got into any trouble.

Molly almost immediately disappeared around the corner into our bedroom. But Claire alerted us, and we went and returned Molly back within our sight. At this point, we had the attic ladder down, and Claire asked if she could climb up into the attic to see what it looked like. We thought it sounded sort of dangerous for a five year old girl to climb up that rickety ladder, but we said she could go up there very carefully under supervision when we were done loading up. During this very conversation, Molly went ahead and just started climbing the rickety ladder up towards the attic. It was shocking to see this little 17-pound girl, who cannot quite walk, confidently climb this wobbly open ladder with at least a full foot between rungs. And she climbed it fast! By the time we fully absorbed what was happening, she was nearly half way up, and pretty soon she was near the top. We really had to scramble to keep her from actually going into the attic, which she no doubt would have done.

Hey, she could have at least taken a box or two up with her, right?