The Great Escape

Little Colin is quite mobile now. Since visiting his cousins in California, he has taken to walking 100% and speed walking (no running yet). He rarely crawls although he falls a good bit. Lisa and I had to take more safety precautions with his new found mobility. Shortly after getting back, I had to install a new gate at the bottom of the stairs and we had to get new dog stairs for our bed. (The dogs need something to help them get on the bed and we needed something that we could easily move so that little Colin couldn't climb into the bed). What we didnt know is that Colin would have so much fun playing with the stairs.

He is sitting inside the flipped over stairs.

Colin also minds pretty well. We tell him when he is doing something that we do not approve of and he typically stops. He has a tendency to talk back (Not looking forward to his teenage years) but we are working on that. He has started to try to out smart us. For example he is not allowed to touch the TV or the TV components. This is very difficult for him since they are covered in buttons and blinking lights. To get around this rule, he has begun to roll his toys near the TV and under the entertainment center so that he has a reason to get close. He is good about not touching things, but occasionally tries to use a trip to the TV to retrieve a ball as an opportunity to touch the TV. Lisa is good at keeping him in line, so he just now looks at all the buttons (it only takes one time of turning off "So you think you can Dance" for him to learn that the huge awesome looking button in the middle of the TV is not that awesome at all)

Now on to the great escape. Colin likes to wonder around the house to see what he can find and get into. Recently he discovered the doggy door. When Lisa is around he just hits it so that it opens and closes. But the other day he was under daddy's watch (clearly daddy is a pushover compared to mom), and he decided it was time to make his move. He pulled his typical trick and threw his ball out the doggy door. Although he can't talk enough yet to say it, I pictured him rationalizing it in his head "My ball is out there and I have to go get it before one of the dogs chew it up". He was slow at first testing the doggy door and making sure that I wasn't going to stop him for touching it. He thought I wasn't watching but I was. He got about halfway out and realized it was a little harder than he thought and he might be stuck. He didn't give up and eventually made it all the way out. He wasn't that smooth about the whole ordeal as he was laughing and giggling the whole time. I thought that maybe Tyson had been licking his face on the other side, but it was just that he was excited to have escaped. Once outside he made a mad dash to the play house and climbed the rockwall to the top. I was one proud parent, but now we need to find a way to prevent his escape from the house just like we prevent him from climbing the stairs and the bed.