Ain't no mountain high enough...

My daughter turns one this month and will make the major transition from being a baby to a toddler.

Mentally and physically my daughter is already there. Every moment she gets she likes to be up on her feet. Now she has worked out she can pull herself up into a standing position by holding onto something, there is no stopping her.

Whenever she is put down she is not satisfied simply sitting on the floor. Instead, almost without fail, she will crawl over to the closest table, chair or human being and pull herself up.

This as a result has significantly changed her viewpoint on the world. She is starting to realise there is far more to life than sitting and crawling at floor level. With just a pull and a wriggle she can be up on her two feet like everybody else.

In this way she is realising she is just the same as mummy and daddy. She too can stand on her own two feet and benefit from the freedom and new opportunities that come with it.

With it has come brand new behaviours such as pulling herself up to stand in front of the TV table so she can view her favourite programmes at close quarters. She goes into the kitchen and pulls herself up by one of the cupboard handles and then opens the cupboard door.

When she is put in her cot for her post-lunch nap all too often I'll hear a commotion coming from her room only to peep in and see her standing up in her cot holding onto the bars. Quite a feat whilst wearing a sleeping bag.

Her high-chair is no longer just for sitting. Left in here too long and she manages to free her legs from the straps and kneel up, tentatively trying out what it would be like to stand with a toe, before mummy intervenes.

Sometimes there is no sitting her down at all. You tell her to bend her knees and her legs will lock out straight. You end up there, holding her up in a standing position until she finally decides that actually she may have a sit down after all. Good to see who's in charge in this relationship.

Luckily she has started to work out how to go from standing to sitting herself. Very slowly she will start to do the splits until she is just low enough to let herself drop without too much of a thud. It saves on tears and hurt bottoms.

She has attempted to climb up the stairs. This step mountain is no longer insurmountable. She has seen mummy and daddy climbing up there and in her mind there's no reason why she can't go up it too.

At first she started by standing with her hands on the first step but I had quite a surprise to come down the stairs one day recently to see her brazenly standing on that first step, her eyes weighing up the second. At this rate it won't be long before she works out how to clamber up the rest.

Ain't no mountain high enough to keep me from getting to you, mummy.