Earlier today I heard a thud in the other room.  As a mother of a toddler, some thuds make you run and others don’t.  This one made me run.  When I got to the dining room, Anna Grace was sitting on the floor, almost under the table and whining a bit.  She seemed more alarmed than anything else.  I didn’t know what happened but then I realized that some things didn’t look right.

1.  The fake fruit that is kept in the fruit bowl in the dead center of the table (and cannot be reached by the toddler standing at the side of the table) was messed up and some of the fruit was sitting around the table.

2.  The set of keys that I had just recently put in the fruit bowl (a set that AG loves to play with) were no longer in the fruit bowl but were sitting out on the table.  (The set of keys stay in the fruit bowl because it was one of the only places that was actually safe from Anna Grace.)

3.  The check that was on the table had been moved.

4.  The little pile of Anna Grace’s socks that were in the dead center of the table were tossed all over the floor.  (yes… I’m doing laundry again.  I’m planning on putting it away before Dana gets here tomorrow).

When I add up the facts I think the kid had to have been crawling around on the top of the dining room table and possibly the thud I heard was her falling as she was trying to get down.  I later heard some action going on out there and I just sat on the couch and waited.  I wanted to see if I could catch her in the act.  But… Drat!…I went in too soon ’cause she was just sitting in one of the dining room chairs when I came in.  (This act alone would take quite a bit of climbing and maneuvering on her part.)

I realized this past Monday when we went to Gymboree that her climbing skills had suddenly made a drastic improvement.  Drastic improvement.  I was impressed by this for about a millisecond and then I came to my senses… maybe Gymboree classes were a bad idea. Well… too late now… the kid’s brilliant mother just signed her up for another eight weeks.  Eight classes to learn how to walk balance beams, it’s fun to jump from high places, ladder climbing skills…. all the things a mother is ok with a toddler doing in a well padded room but that the toddler will immediately begin to practice at home… over a cement driveway… y’all  get the picture.  Maybe I should’ve signed her up for music this time. 

Live and learn.