July 26, 2002 - Friday
"Jeremy's on the stairs," says Harry of his brother. He's really very helpful letting me know Jeremy's whereabouts, especially if Jeremy is something Harry senses he shouldn't be on his own. (I'm not sure whether that's altruistic or sibling tattling, but it doesn't matter.)
"Thank you, Harry," I respond from my place in the living room picking up the remnants of recent play. I know Jeremy's over there by the stairs, and had pretty much calculated how much cleanup I can safely do before Jeremy might get into trouble, but it's helpful to have Harry's confirmation of where Jeremy is. Sure enough, Jeremy's on the stairs again and this time I do not restrict his progress. It takes him 2-3 minutes, but he is quite focused, barely pausing on his way up, and makes it all the way to the top of the stairs.

This is a bit surprising. Jeremy is way ahead of Harry on this, who first climbed the entire staircase at almost 10 months (Jeremy's only 8 and a half now). Jeremy also seems to be making somewhat better progress walking, although it's really hard to remember exactly how fast Harry progressed with that. Jeremy has been walking a lot on all fours (feet and hands), rather than straight crawling, and that's not something I remember much from Harry. Given Jeremy's extra weight I would have expected he might not walk so quickly, or perhaps not climb the stairs so quickly, but maybe this is a case of emulating the older sibling. After all, Harry learned stairs pretty quickly after starting at a new daycare with lots of slightly older kids. On the other hand, Harry seemed to be a little more calculating about it, sizing it up first before trying. Jeremy seems to be a little more apt to wing it.


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