No More Baby Gates

 That's right, we have a 14 month old and have no baby gates in our house.

Two or three weekends ago, Emma decided that she wanted to go downstairs. I can't remember if Kurt and I didn't want to go down stairs or if we weren't paying attention to Emma, but at any rate, Emma decided that she was going to climb over the baby gate to get to the basement. Luckily, we stopped her before she tumbled head first down the stairs or fell backward off the gate. Then we took the gate down.

Emma was overjoyed! She now has full run of the house -- and we take extra care to close the office and laundry room doors and not leave random things laying around. She can go upstairs or downstairs whenever she pleases. We do follow her to make sure she's not getting into too much trouble. At first I thought that by not turning on the lights would be a deterrent to her going down stairs, but since we have a walk out basement, there is enough light that it doesn't even phase her. She is a big fan of changing scenery several times a day and enjoys going up and down the stairs.