Stair Climber - Part 3

I decided to remove the baby gates, since Troy no longer needs them. He long ago mastered walking up and down stairs, holding onto the wall for balance. He was at least closing them for safety purposes, since that’s what we always did, but over the last week, he was no longer doing that either. He found that if he left them open, then he could go upstairs and downstairs as he pleased without having to depend on us to open the gates for him.

When he came around the corner and saw them for the first time, he said, “There’s no gate!” “I know. I removed it.” “What happened to it?” “You’re a big boy now. You don’t need it anymore, so I made it disappear.” “Huh. Okay.”

As he made it down the stairs and saw where the other gate should have been, he stopped and said, “There’s no other gate!” “Yep. No more having to jump off the last step to get over the gate rail.”

Since the bottom gate had to cover the last step so that it could wedge between the stair rail and the wall, he always struggled with it. He’d have to turn his foot sideways and hop off at an angle, or he’d have to make a jump from the next step up. But tonight, he stepped down on the bottom step for the first time and just stood there for a minute, feeling the carpet between his toes. Then, he stepped easily down to the floor with a satisfied smile.