Climb Every Mountain

Until last week Max had been quite a cautious boy. He was always sure to observe and assess every situation before taking a go. This held true for the various skills like sitting, crawling, walking, etc. We never really saw him practice. It was like he observed until he thought he knew what to do, tried it a few times and *voila* he could do it.

Last weekend all this flew out the window. Our little man threw caution to the wind and started climbing his little heart out. He has no regard for danger, height, falls or any of it. He just loves moving and seems to see all objects as a challenge to be summitted. I managed to catch a few of his antics on tape. Look at me - photographing when I should be saying, "No, that's dangerous." We're more likely to say, "Be careful." Even so, it's so darn fun to watch him feeling more confident and taking a more active role in exploring his environment. He is just having so much fun.

Here he is climbing his chairs (and table!) that we just got for him at IKEA.



As you can see, he uses the table for leverage to get up and over the couch.



He will also push his little chair around as a means to midpoint between the floor and a seemingly unattainable height like the hutch in the dining room. He's a thinker that boy.

Finally, one of his more impressive moves involves the acrobatic required to get up on our dining room chairs.



He puts his feet on the bottom support rung then flings himself over the arm and slithers onto the seat while on his stomache.



Then he rotates and stands up while trying to shimmy up the spindles of the chair back. Smart and determined. We better watch out.