The Stair Master

Up the stairs, down the stairs, flip around.  This is Preston's new favorite thing.  He's been climbing up stairs since he started to crawl a few months ago, but it's taken some time to get him to master the art of climbing down the stairs.  He usually just reached his arms out as far as he could and started crawling.  Now, I'm a mom that understands that the sooner you teach your kids to crawl backwards down the stairs, the easier your life becomes.  So we've been working on this for quite awhile.  He would crawl towards the stairs, I'd tell him to stop and turn around, he'd pause for a minute, think about what I was telling him, smile, then quickly turn back around and crawl as fast as he could towards the stairs.  It was some sort of game and became a little challenge for him.  Little turkey!  He even tried to climb off the couch head first.  Needless to say, he's done some pretty good flips the last few months.  There's just something about this little one.  He really wants to see where he's going.  Dylan was not like this at all.  Dylan would turn around and crawl backwards over a crack in the sidewalk or flip around to crawl backwards down a small grassy hill.  I taught him to crawl down backwards and he took it very literally.  Not Preston!  The kid just catapults himself towards the stairs and hopes for the best.  But after close to three months of solid reminders and constant pulling of the legs down the stairs first, I think he's finally got it.  I've watched him for several days now turn around all by himself.  Although he doesn't turn around and then back up like you would expect.  He crawls right to the edge and then gradually lets his foot down so his feet go down first, but he can see what's going on behind him.  I must admit, I'm  pretty excited to not have to worry so much about the stairs.  Dylan and Anthony are so used to my "turn around" prompts that they both still remind him, whether he needs it or not.  Unfortunately, Preston starts going down the stairs, gets distracted, and ends up sitting on the stairs for awhile.  That's what happened today.  He saw the sippy cup he'd left on the stairs earlier, decided to take it with him, and lost his balance.  Poor little baby had his first (well technically second) real fall down the stairs, witnessed by both mom and dad.  It caught us all off guard, but luckily he was fine.  Crazy little stair climber!