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    You can’t keep a toddler down

    When we moved G into his big boy room and his big boy bed, we put a gate on his door. We kid-proofed his room, but there was still lots we didn’t want him to have free roam of when we couldn’t pay attention (say at 3am in the morning while we’re sleeping).

    And the gate had worked out great… until last week. Last week, you see, G discovered the foot-stool to the rocker in his room. To be more specific, he discovered that the stool 1) could be easily moved around, and 2) was light enough for HIM to move it around. He first tested this by turning on the lights in his room on off. It was only half a day later, when in the middle of nap-time, as I said on my bed, I heard the pitter-patter of toddler paws. They were accompanied by G’s grinning face, who was beaming at his accomplishment of getting out. What he had done was bring the foot stool up to the gate; climbed on the stool and then jumped over the gate.

    So there went our toddler jail. For now we just removed the foot stool, but I know that him dragging the rocker itself is only days away. At this rate, we’re investigating just moving the gate to the bathroom door, where he can cause the most havoc and just call him the victor of the confinement battle.

    I’m also learning that in addition to watching my language, I have to stop doing things I don’t want him to repeat. He is the epitome of Monkey-see-Monkey-do. The other night, I used a chair from the dining room to reach a Tupperware container from our cabinets. Yeah, yeah, I’m short. Whatever. I did this out of pure laziness to go and hunt down a ladder. G saw this, however, and guess how he gets in his seat for dinner now? That’s right: he brings a chair from his toddler activity table. I get bad mommy points. 100%.

    This child amazes me every day in how his mind works.

    4 responses to “You can’t keep a toddler down”

    1. Ariel says:

      Isn’t it amazing how they copy us!

    2. BecomingMom says:

      It was just a matter of time 🙂 We find that Jasper really likes to have the “door open” from his room to the hall and so we threaten him with we will close the door if he doesn’t stay in his bed/go to sleep etc.

      It’s a tough age because we parents have to switch from pure physical means of getting the desired behavior into reasoning.. which as you know, is quite difficult with a toddler!

      Jeff did the SAME THING on the chair the other day and I almost clobbered him for setting such a bad example LOL!

      • avalikelava says:

        @BecomingMom, Reasoning? What’s that? If Jasper can be reasoned with, that’s awesome. We in turn get a “Huh?” (which coincidentally is his favorite this to say next to “NO!” Oh and you can tell Jeff my tale now — evidence that stopping him was the right thing. What was I thinking?!?

    3. Shane says:

      I didn’t know where he learned it, but his technique for getting on his toddler chair, a step on the big chair, and then into his booster seat is awesome. I’m torn, because until he starts Jumping down, it’s nice having him get in the seat on his own instead of being chased around the house to be put in the seat.

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