Getting My Exercise

I'm getting my exercise today, that's for sure. But it's not in a great fun way, or for a great fun reason. It's because we have the baby gates up in the kitchen and in the entrance to the front room (where the computer is). And I think the gates will be a semi-permanent fixture for a while now. So I get to practice my mad hurdling skills every time I need to move from the kitchen to the front room, go upstairs, or go to the bathroom. And I get my weight lifting work out in as I have to lift Emma up and over the gates every time she has to use the bathroom or wash her hands, which is all too often today since she has a cold and is blowing her nose and washing her hands every 10 minutes! Oh yeah, so back to the story about why the gates are up. We have been using them occasionally, as Ashlyn has been getting into more things, it's been easier to just keep her limited to one or two rooms at a time. Well, this morning while Dakota and I were in the crazy morning zone--rushing around to get breakfast ready and get Dakota off to work--we lost the baby. She had been playing so nicely in the front room, so we thought we'd let her keep playing until breakfast was ready. But then it got really quiet in there. All you parents out there know that kind of quiet I'm talking about. So I went to see what she was doing, and she was not there. I checked all the other rooms down stairs and couldn't find her anywhere. That's when I thought, she wouldn't have gone upstairs, would she? Nah... But I went to check anyway, and there she was, playing in Mommy and Daddy's room! She scaled those stairs all by herself! Little stinker! I wish our baby gates would work at the base of our stairs, but because of the type of railing we have, a gate there won't work. So the only thing we can do is block off both points of access to the hallway with the stairs. It's actually making me feel quite nostalgic, as it is bringing back memories of my track and field hurdling days. But in track and field, you don't have to clear the hurdles with a bundle of dirty laundry in your arms, or small (or not so small) children clinging to you!