Not so baby steps

Mom commented that by looking at the pictures of our apartment, she couldn't tell that we're on the second story, and I realized that I hadn't included any photos of our Stairway of Doom. Here it is going up:







And here it is going down:

It's a long, very steep staircase! I've had a couple of panicked "Where is Peter?!?" moments because I can envision him thinking that he can take on that staircase by himself. We plan to install a baby gate at the top of the stairs, but some of the tools we need are coming on Saturday (with all the rest of our stuff), so I have to wait until then unless I want to buy duplicate tools (which I really don't). Fortunately, Peter's portable crib fits perfectly in the opening at the top of the stairs, so when he's awake, we just move the crib to block the stairs and the problem is solved. I find myself even a little worried about Jack and Thomas on these stairs, because I'm worried they might be a little overconfident and try to run down them, but so far the worst thing that has happened was Jack's little experiment with gravity (i.e. "How far can I throw toys down the stairway?"). I realized that in many other apartment complexes I've been in, or seen, there were sets of outside staircases that led to upper floor apartments. Once you were in your doorway, your apartment was all on the same level. I realized, however, that outside staircases would probably be a terrible idea in places that get lots of snow and ice, so I bet that's why they designed it this way.

Speaking of which, we heard that we may get our first snow shower this week! I'm not sure if we actually will, but I plan to stock up on cold weather gear at the store tomorrow just in case. Target has a great selection of kids and babies' snow gear, at decent prices, so if I can't find anything at the thrift store, then Target should do just fine.

In other news, we stopped at our neighbor's apartment and rang the doorbell to deliver a plate of cookies, introduce ourselves, and apologize about the noise (which is getting much better, by the way), but he wasn't home. I wrote a nice note, left the cookies in a bag on the doorknob, and hopefully we'll get a chance to meet him in person soon.

Hopefully when Peter wakes up from his nap we'll take an afternoon walk and I'll get some more good photos of our area to share tomorrow!