I fell on the stairs the other day. Not the stairs in my new house, of course, but my mom's. And all I did was slide onto my bottom where there were plenty of shock absorbers ready to take the hit. My son was already downstairs, so he walked up to me looking concerned, and gave me a hug. Sweet boy!
I want to get him used to the stairs at our house so I don't have to play referee every time he wants to go up and down. Instead, this sweet-but-kinda-lazy boy looks up at me, reaches his arms up, and says "carry you?" It's so cute I can't resist.
I half-jokingly chide him, and then carry him.
The day will come when he wants to do everything on his own, so I steal that bit for myself even while I chide him for being perfectly capable of stepping down the stairs using the handrail and holding my hand.
Now that we're not living in a ground-level condo but a two-story house with a yard, I'm discovering all kinds of stuff to be selectively paranoid about. Stairs, concrete steps, round door handles, the door to the stairs, window ledges, slippery oak floors, dirt and more dirt, dirty snow, small random objects left over from construction... okay, not paranoid. Just more aware. I'm trying to strike a balance between letting him explore and keeping the safety barriers in place (those aren't physical barriers in most cases, unless you count my arms).
He's only tripped on the stairs 2-3 times, fallen over the edge of the concrete patio and flipped over twice, walked into a table or countertop a few times, and accidentally gotten pushed onto his bottom or into a countertop once or twice. He'll survive, I'm sure of it...
