Alice is just racing through the milestones these days. She’s just started being able to climb a step or two on ladders. She can now get up a rung or two, although she’s not coordinated enough to do more than get stuck at that point. She just can’t get her foot in the right spot for long enough to make progress. It doesn’t seem so long ago that Charles was mastering the bunk bed ladder (although that was Charles being able to make it all the way up).
Alice is also engaging in one of the cute little habits that Corwin had when he was young, which is getting down and crawling in order to transition between surfaces or traverse shallow inclines. Alice can get down stairs by backing down. When she has to switch from the sidewalk or grass to the other, she gets down on all fours and carefull backs over the boundary. She will also do that for even shallow slopes that drop an inch or two over a foot or so. Sometimes Alice will even back carefully over large cracks. That’s something I strongly remember Corwin doing, although I don’t really have much memory of Charles doing that sort of thing. Given Alice’s penchant for falling on her face and bloodying her lip or (yesterday) scraping up her chin, I suppose this extra care is for the best.
Alice is also acquiring the driving bug like both of her brothers. I hadn’t really noticed her being interested before, but the last week has seen a definite awareness on her part of driving and steering wheels. Before, when I would hold her at Corwin’s computer she would just chew on the steering wheel but now she puts her hands out and turns it like she was driving. At soccer practice this evening it got cold and so I bundled up Charles and Alice in the van to keep them warm (Corwin, I will note, was out playing in short sleeves without complaint). Alice was very excited to be able to turn the steering wheel and fiddle with the other controls.
Yesterday afternoon it was a nice day and Mom was off doing some kind of Mom thing so I was stuck with the crew. We ended up hanging out outside until it was time for Corwin to go to Cub Scouts. Alice had a lot of fun riding the back of Charles’ tractor, pulled mainly by Dad or Corwin. After we got tired, I decided to pull her out of the trailer before she fell over followed Charles’ footsteps in the ways of head trauma. Mistakenly, I put her on the front part. She thought that was great and immediately grabbed the steering wheel to go cruising. I tried to pull her out but she would have none of that. So I had to lean over in a very uncomfortable way to push the tractor along, which Alice thought was great fun. It was only with some reluctance and much pushing that I managed to get her back in the trailer for Charles to zip around with her (how she didn’t fly out the back from Charles’ sudden starts and stops I don’t know - strong hands that girl has).