It's Funny *Now*...

Ah, the perspective that time brings.  Would have been nice to know way back when that my sons were actually both going to survive their toddlerhood relatively unscathed despite their best efforts to take themselves out of the genepool at a very young age.

Exhibit A: the staircase in our front hall.  15 steps, straight up, no landing, hard floor at the bottom.  I had a baby gate at the bottom of those stairs for years.  Petunia, sweet agreeable child that she was, never tried to circumvent that gate to get upstairs.  The boys, on the other hand...have five fingers, as my dad would say.  Both of them viewed the gate as a personal challenge.  "Ha, Mom...you think that stinkin' gate will stop me from going upstairs??  Think again!!"

This picture is not of my sons, but it might as well be.  Looks like a clone of our staircase, even!  And both of my boys did exactly what these kids are doing when they were two or three...climbed up the outside since they couldn't get over the gate.  Is it any wonder that I have gray hair??