My Little Monkey

Even before he could walk, Eli liked to climb. So I started calling him Monkey. This past week, a light bulb went off in Eli's head. He can reach things with a stool, or better yet, my desk chair. Now he's started pushing my chair around the kitchen to reach everything. He uses his whole body to climb up onto the chair - he lays his stomach onto the chair, pulls his body up, then moves around until he's sitting or standing (it's usually standing).

He's used this newly acquired skill to climb onto our kitchen table,

I was only gone for a minute and came back to this. Eli started it. Tali copied.

climb onto my desk, and, most importantly, reach things on the kitchen counter like tomatoes or toys, clean dishes, or breakable things.

Sadly, there is no way that I can think of to child-proof for this. Unless I remove all of the chairs from our kitchen and we start eating on the floor like the Japanese, I just have to keep my eyes open all the time.


Update: About five minutes after I wrote this, Eli climbed up to my desk, grabbed a blue permanent marker and scribbled on my desk! Luckily, Tali saw it before it was too late (I was doing dishes) and helped me clean it. Watching him like a hawk isn't so easy. Maybe I can lock him in Jackson's crate?