Karl-Abraham has discovered the stairs!

Abraham has discovered the stairs. As soon as he started crawling a couple of months ago, we had the university put gates up at the bottom and top of the stairs – our viscous marble steps – knowing it would be an issue. This is our experience, that it’s when you’re not expecting something, that it happens. So we knew that Abraham eventually would start trying to climb the stairs - hence the gate. Last night while I was at choir, however, when Courtney turned around and saw Abraham on the 6th or 7th step (he wouldn’t tell me exactly HOW close Abraham was to his death), the gate was open, because, frankly, Abraham has shown no stair climbing skills at all. Until then, at least. He didn’t fall down, but as far as I understand, Abraham had made the climb during just the one minute Courtney turned his back on him. It’s like with the milk. My grandmother used to say that water boils at 100 degrees, and milk boils when you turn your back on it. Well, babies seem to make most of their developmental leaps when you’re not watching them. Like when August “learned” to get off our high bed after a nap in Belgium, and got his first light concussion. Or when William, three months, reached over and grabbed, with perfect skill, a ham bone and sucked it dry, in no time at all, without dropping it, while we were cleaning off the table. We’ve missed several moments like that, and we’re around our kids 24/7, pretty much. The ones that you do catch however, are always great, and if you can catch your child in the act, like Courtney did yesterday, that’s fine too. I completely missed it since I was at choir practice, however today, I get to watch Abraham climb the few steps up to the gate over, and over, and over, and over again, shrieking with joy to have made a new discovery.