In the clink

This is a sight I saw far, far too many times last week. Maren shocked us all by learning to crawl up the stairs on Christmas Day at my parents' house. She just crawled over to them and headed up like she'd done it a million times before. Since we've been home, she's been up our stairs many times each day. If it got at all quiet, the first place I checked was the stairs, and 9 times out of 10, I found a sight much like these pictures. She hasn't fallen once, and she's very confident and fast, but I worried that she might get distracted and fall--and it's a long way down with a hardwood floor to land on, and I was tired of chasing her up the stairs. So this is the sight I see now:

Oh, that's just sad, isn't it? Poor Bronco has to suffer too, and he didn't even do anything wrong! Even though it makes me feel a little guilty to cage my kid, it's been so nice not to have to worry about her going up (or more specifically, down) the stairs. It's also made loading the dishwasher much easier as well, since I'm not fighting Maren for the silverware. I do half wonder if one of these days, she'll plot with Bronco, and he'll lift her up and over the wall to freedom. I'll be keeping an eye on those two....