(245) Freedom!

My house has stairs. Steep stairs. Hard, wooden stairs. Two sets of them!

One staircase leads down to the basement and I don't worry much about that one because it is hidden by a lockable door. The only time I use that staircase is when I am doing laundry (which, by the way, I hate having my washer and dryer clear down in the cold basement).

The other staircase is not so hidden and is much more frequently used. It leads from upstairs where we sleep to the main floor where we eat (among other things). Owyn has become quite a master at going up and down stairs, but I still worry about her falling.

Lily...oh Lily. She was eager to try those stairs from the moment she found them and in earlier months I was constantly pulling her off of them. Then one day in early fall, I had a lapse and ran upstairs for a minute without blocking her path. I was alerted by Owyn telling Lily to stop and ran back to the stairs only to find Lily already halfway up. She would have made it further, but she was distracted by a bag of hair bands she had found on the bookshelf I kept next to the stairs. She stood up, held it in the air, and was falling backwards down them before I could reach her.

No worries, though. It is a scary story that turned out fine. She cried for about 5 minutes. I, on the other hand, was not able to compose myself so quickly and cried for 30 minutes straight and then at random moments throughout the day as I pictured her tumble over and over in my mind. That day, we went to the store and that night Mike installed a very nice gate at the bottom of the stairs.

It has been nice to have, but my fear of my kids by the stairs transferred to them falling down from the very top where there was no gate. When I am upstairs with the girls, I am very careful to block access to the stairs, but that also limits my access to their room, my room, and the bathroom. It completely blocks my craft room. No good.

So, last night, Mike installed a second gate at the top of the stairs and today I put it to use. I took the girls upstairs and secured the gate. Then we all went about our business. Now, I didn't get a chance to get to my craft room, but I was able to roam freely upstairs as I cleaned. The girls played happily in their room and seemed to really like the fact they could wander in all of the hallway and they liked looking down the stairs calling for Daddy.

I loved it. It isn't a huge difference, but I loved being able to clean without worrying where they are. Someday soon I will be able to work on my projects while they play! This is something I have only dreamed of!

So, today, I am happy to have stairs that are blocked and also girls who love to play in their room!