Acrophobe

Miriam has turned into quite the little monkey recently. She can climb onto the toy chest all by herself. The toy chest functions as a bench when the lid is closed but you can pull the back of the bench down to make a desk. When the desk is open she can climb onto the bench part and then onto the desk. She can climb onto the fireplace ledge, the coffee table, and is doing her best to pull herself over the baby gate (though she hasn't managed that quite yet).

To get into the top drawers in the kitchen she pulls out the bottom drawer and climbs inside, which makes her tall enough to reach the top drawer.

The only problem with all the climbing she's been doing lately is that she's terribly acrophobic—even the most dainty degree of altitude makes her tremble with fear. She's too afraid to attempt getting down from anywhere (and I mean anywhere) by herself so instead, when she's ready to disembark, she calls out for me.


Every time I come to her rescue I try to convince her to turn around and slide off the precipice on her stomach, feet first, but she won't try it on her own and acts like I'm forcing her to her death when I help her. So every few minutes throughout the day I hear, "Uh, Momma!? Momma! Momma! Momma!" and then I go retrieve her from wherever she's stuck.

I had just gotten her down from the fireplace when I heard her call out to me again.

"Uh, Momma!? Momma! Momma! Momma!"

I looked up from the book I was reading. She was standing in the kitchen.

"Come here, sweetie."

She shook her head.

"Okay, fine. Don't."

I continued reading.

"Uh, Momma!? Momma! Momma! MOMMA!"

My, she's getting insistent.

"What is it, baby? You're just fine. Why don't you come play with this car? Vroom, vroom."

"Mo-ha-ha-ha-mma!" she whimpered.

Upon hearing how panicked her voice was I put my book down and walked over to her. She was clutching the doorjam to the garage with one hand and her other hand was griping the corner of the wall by the fridge. She was balanced precariously on the...hot air vent.

"Oh, you can get off of that by yourself!" I told her, "You got yourself up there."

'Up there' being a whole .5 cm off the ground, if that.

I went back to idly encouraging her to descend while reading my book.

She continued calling out to me and eventually Grandma heard her and came upstairs to check on her. At first glance she thought Miriam had gotten her fingers stuck in the door somehow.

"Is your hand stuck?" Grandma asked.

Miriam let go of the doorjam momentarily to show her that it wasn't.

"Come here," coaxed Grandma, holding out her hand.

Miriam shook her head. She wouldn't take a step until Grandma grabbed her arm to steady her; then she rushed into Grandma's arms, a shaky, sniffling mess. Grandma soothed her and then put her down and a few minutes later I heard, "Uhhh...Momma? Momma! Momma! Momma!"

When Andrew finally came home from school today (at 9:30 PM (he left at 7:15 AM)) and I told him this story he didn't act surprised. Instead he said,

"That's like the time she got stuck on a book in the office. She's so goofy!"