There’s a common theme in a lot of fairy tales of locking princesses away in towers. When I think about it, it seems to be perfectly rational. Now, don’t imagine me as a brooding evil stepmother before I can explain. My two little girls are princess. They’re adorable, they’re smart and they know how to get into a whole lot of trouble.
When I started working on the siding, I only did it when the girls were taking their afternoon naps. It advanced into letting Evelyn watch while she played on her jungle gym or had a picnic with her dolls on the lawn. It wasn’t long though before she became extremely interested in the ladder.
At first, she’d just stand beneath it and yell up at me that I was really high. It progressed to her stepping on the bottom rung, only to scamper down when I barked at her to get off the ladder (the last thing I needed atop an already wobbly ladder was more wobbling).
She managed to scale the entire ladder in the time it took me to clip a piece of siding. She triumphantly shouted for me to look at how high she was. My heart stopped and I rushed over to steady the ladder and guide her back down. I made sure she didn’t come near the ladder the rest of the day. She was a perfect princess. Until the next day:
I had been fooled twice and that was enough. Evelyn was banned from “helping” for a few days. I only worked on the siding I could do from the ground while she was awake, only working on the ladder while she was asleep.
Claire was not completely innocent either. One day she was not particularly sleepy, I allowed her to come outside with me. Usually she sits and squeals while slapping the cats or munches on her crackers, but the ladder was too much of a draw to her too.
She managed to get up on the first rung but couldn’t quite figure out how to step back down. She doesn’t look too upset about it, does she?
We called it a day and I finished up the siding the next day while my princesses were sleeping.
After some thought, I decided the best way to keep my girls out of trouble was to lock them away in their tower.
It’s more like a dungeon I suppose, tucked away under the slide. I don’t mind if those little monkeys climb on their own gym but with a bowl of crackers, they were content to stay locked up for a while.
