A Whole Lot of Crazy - Part 1

Alexa has always been great going to bed (when I'm home).  She's one of those kids who you put in the bed, she picks up her paci and bunny, turns on her music, lays down and goes to sleep.  It's a big part of what makes her so incredibly awesome.  So, a few weeks ago (I know, I've been a little too distracted with other things to keep up with the blog lately) we were all doing our usual bedtime routine and for some reason Lexi wanted her paci early.  We are hopefully going to be getting rid of the paci soon, so she only gets it when she is physically in her bed.  So after lots of screaming, we finally put her in the crib, gave her the paci and said good night.  Well, she did not like that at all.  She kept on screaming that she was "all done night night" and after lots of hugs and kisses I just told her it was time to go to sleep and left her in the crib to scream by herself.  No big deal.  I assumed she would just lay down and go to sleep like she always does.  About two minutes later, as I was doing dishes, I looked up to see her door slightly open.  My first thought was 'why did Nick go in there?  She finally quieted down and she needs to just put herself to sleep.'  Then I saw a little 2.5 foot creature in her pink footie pajamas creep around the door, grab the handle and slowly pull it closed.  She turned around to look at me with an expression of equal parts awe, excitement and pure terror.  And then she said "hi".  Crazy girl had climbed out of her crib, somehow (thank God) landed on her feet and decided to come hang out with the grown ups.  We scooped her up and I read her some books as Nick took the bumpers off of her crib.  I know it's something we should have done months ago but she likes her crib so much, I never thought she'd try to climb out of it.  Plus, she's so short the side rails on the crib come up to her armpits.  Even if she used the bumpers to stand on, I thought it'd be impossible for her to actually get out.  Well apparently I have been proven wrong.  As usual.  And after laying on the floor next to her crib pretending to sleep and watching her crawl out not one but two more times that night without the help of the bumpers, I have come to the conclusion that my child has super human upper body strength.  She goes to the front right corner of her crib, grabs onto the outside of the rail and pulls herself up until she can get her right leg up onto the right side rail.  Then she uses her leg to help pull herself up so that she's laying on top of the side rail on her belly and I assume then she swings her legs around to drop and land on her feet (I 'woke up' and stopped her when she got to her belly).  I guess that its a good thing that we drilled into her head to get down from the couch or our bed feet first.  At least maybe that helped her from landing on her head.  Needless to say, we went out and got another video monitor after that night (our first one had broken months ago and we've just been using an audio monitor).  And, so far, she hasn't tried to climb out again.  Which I'm very happy about.  Alexa really does love her crib and, the way that she sleeps, I wouldn't trust her to be in a toddler bed.  Plus, I like knowing that when we put her to bed at night she has to stay there until we get her in the morning.  No night time strolls around the house or midnight play time in her room.  I'm not ready for that yet.