Where's Aidan?

So the other day Jackson dumps an entire box of Cheerios on the family room floor - now, Aidan's been eating Cheerios for a while - but I fear an entire box would not be healthy for him - so I start vacuuming up the piles. I set Aidan down on a clean part of the floor and continue vacuuming. It doesn't take long, but when I turn around. The little man is gone. There's one step up from the family room to the kitchen area which he's climbed numerous times - so I go in the kitchen - directly to the pantry, cuz Aidan likes to play in the cupboards - no Aidan. I go in my office since he also likes to play in all my Scrapping stuff - no Aidan. I go frantic around the downstairs until I know he's nowhere to be found - then mommy panic hits - it's one of those "Without A Trace" episodes where in one split second, when no one could have predicted, something horrible has happened. But with just enough faith that things are O.K. I run upstairs to ask the kids if they know where he is. As I reach the top stair (without the gate set up) I turn and see the little 10 month old in the hall playing with some toys. I call out for Emery and ask if she brought Aidan up - confused since she would have forgotten the gate if she had indeed brought him up. She pokes her head out of the playroom and says, "no" and we both stand shocked as can be as we watch this little oblivious man play as if nothing could be more natural, even mundane. So we realize for the first time, he climbed the entire flight of stairs - and what amazed us even more is that he didn't fall down them!!! I guess without anyone distracting him at the bottom, he had no reason to turn around, which would have resulted in quite the tumble. So we took him to the bottom to see it for ourselves. And sure enough - he climbed like a pro. We had never really given him the opportunity to practice - guess he didn't need it. So now we're bringing the gate up and down depending on where we want him to stay - I know he did it perfect the first time - but I don't want to hear the little guy take the inevitable distracted tumble. No matter how much we try to keep them from growing up - they do it anyway! It's just in their nature.

{Photo and Incident June 4, 2008}