Sarabeth has never really been a climber. I'd be amazed hearing stories from moms who have children her age, telling of their kids scaling the refrigerator, bookshelves, or whatever else they could find. Or, in the case of a family I met while living in Waco, her daughter used her highchair (on wheels) to climb so she could reach a snack on the counter and ended up breaking her leg. She was in a cast from her thigh to her toes. I never really understood how children that little could climb so well. I've recently learned...
Sarabeth & Anabelle each have their own rooms since we've moved into our new house. Their rooms are connected by a jack & jill bath- the tub and toilet are in the middle and they each have a sink on their own sides. There's no door to block off the sinks though, so I keep the doors to the bathtub closed to at least avoid them taking baths in the middle of the night. Sarabeth sometimes takes a while to fall asleep and loves to play, talk, and recently slam the drawers/cabinet doors in her bathroom instead of napping. I can hear it if I'm directly below her bedroom, so I'll go up and have her get back in bed. I'll go in sometimes to find her inside the cabinets under her sink...as if she's playing hide & seek with, um, no-one. It wasn't that big of a deal to me because I keep those drawers empty so it didn't seem like an immediate danger. Here's where the fun part comes in.
I go in one day because I her the racket upstairs again and Sarabeth is standing in the bottom drawer in her bathroom with the HOT water on. Yes, scalding hot water. She turns to me and says, "mommy, watee hot!" Thankfully she hadn't gotten burned, so I turned the water off and she finally took a nap. The next day Josh child-proofed the whole house. All the drawers/cabinets that could be dangerous, including the girls' bathrooms. The only problem was that the top two drawers didn't work with the latches. I figured it would be fine because I'd only seen her standing in the bottom drawer and that one was now locked. Wrong again. The next day during her nap I found her sitting in the middle drawer like a little bucket seat. Since she's never been much of a climber, I have no idea how she would have gotten DOWN on her own. That's when I decided I needed another baby gate to block off her bathroom completely. That night, she was playing again instead of going to bed (I hadn't made it to the store yet to get another gate!) and I go up to find her sitting in her sink. No hot water this time, just sitting in the sink. The gate went up the next morning.
You might think this is the end of the story...not quite. The only things she has in her room are a bed & dresser. I guess she got bored now that her bathroom wasn't accessible, so she decided her dresser was the next best thing. I hear drawers slamming a few days later (and was pretty sure she'd climbed the gate and was in her bathroom again) only to find her laying in the bottom drawer of her dresser, covered in her clothes, like a mouse in a matchbox. I thought to myself, if she climbs any higher she's going to tip the dresser over on top of herself! I knew I needed to move it out of her room but procrastinated, thinking that she wouldn't REALLY tip it over.
Friday morning of last week: I was at Love Field about to catch a flight to San Antonio to meet my good friend Elizabeth for a girl's weekend away. Josh calls before I get on the plane. He tells me that Sarabeth's dresser has fallen on top of her and he's going to have to take her to a dentist because he's pretty sure she's chipped a tooth and/or pushed it into her gums. I'm freaking out, crying in the airport because I hadn't moved the dresser when I needed to, and I wasn't there to comfort her. His mom was on her way over to keep Anabelle so he could take Sarabeth to the Dr. I talk to him a few minutes later and things are better- no chipped tooth and she seemed to be ok besides 2 fat lips and several bruises. Thank you, Lord!
Anyway, she's completely fine and only has a bed in her room anymore. I call it her little "purple prison cell." We did put a box of books so she has something to do, now that there's nothing left to climb.
Here's a picture of her after the dresser got the best of her.
It doesn't look nearly as bad as it sounded!
Sarabeth & Mommy in the fountain
