Update: Ellie Can Do The Stairs!

To be honest, I can’t believe that I’m writing this post, especially this early.

Part of me almost wonders if by writing it I’m going to jinx Ellie’s progress, but honestly, this news is tremendous: Ellie can go up and down our carpeted stairs!

Here’s how we got to this point:

As you may know, CG loves stairs. I don’t understand it, I just know that if he encounters stairs, he’ll go up and down them as much as possible. Consequently, when he realized we had stairs, I think he was thrilled – and immediately frustrated.

You see, we’ve decided to confine the cats to one floor at a time. We have the pet gate at the top of the stairs, and put the pet gate’s box blocking the bottom of the stairs. So no matter which floor the cats are on, they can’t go up the stairs without us supervising.

As much as that may bug CG, I knew it was the safest option for Ellie. She’s considerably more wobbly than CG, and I didn’t want her trying the stairs, falling and hurting herself. That said, the first time we let CG use the stairs, he was thrilled. We were on the main floor, going upstairs to go to sleep. I removed the box at the bottom of the stairs, and CG flew up them in his wobbly mountain climber way.

And Ellie, who loves her brother CG more than anything, watched. Now, it’s also important to mention that Ellie thinks CG is the coolest big brother in the world, and she copies him any chance she gets. So what do you think she wanted to do? That’s right: Climb the stairs, too.

Honestly, I didn’t know if she’d be able to simply because I didn’t think she’d have the strength. She’s a whisp of a cat, maybe six pounds, and hardly muscular. But she took her time, one stair at a time, slowly climbing up methodically. I stayed behind her the entire time, ready to catch her if she fell.

And wouldn’t you know it? She made it the whole way. I was absolutely thrilled. The next day she decided that she would come down the stairs on her own for breakfast, and she did a beautiful job then, too.

Since then, she’s gone up and down the stairs a number of times. She’s not skilled enough that I would allow them unlimited access to the stairs, but she has shown me that she can do so much more than I give her credit for. And that’s simply amazing.

The only trouble we really face now is that CG just discovered there’s also a stairway to the basement. I think his little cat mind was blown when he realized our home didn’t have one set of stairs, but two! That said, these non-carpeted, non-finished stairs are hardly CH-friendly – plus, we don’t want our cats in the basement. So he’ll just have to deal – even if that means him sticking his whole arm under the basement door in protest.