I think I've told this story here, but my niece, starting at 18 months, would climb up the doors in their house using the molding at the sides to shimmy all the way to the top, where she would hang until rescued. She would do this at 3 a.m., sometimes.

I caught her perched on the rail of her crib a few weeks ago, and the fall to the floor from a toddler bed is not as far as from the top rail of the crib. So it was either switch the sleeping arrangement, or convince her to wear her bicycle helmet to bed.

This was how HKF earned her toddler bed badge too. Exactly. Also a slot in the local gymnastics class after I came to pick her up at school and saw her standing on one foot on top of the top bar of the very rickety metal climber on the playground.

Giving your parents heart attacks is always more fun at 3 am.

Perhaps you could put something on the floor to pad it for the next time she falls (or leaps) out of bed?

Perhaps you could put something on the floor to pad it for the next time she falls (or leaps) out of bed?

Actually, my double thick yoga mat was there. I have lived with her for two years, and I know what she's capable of...

You poor non-sleepers!

I think I've told this story here, but my niece, starting at 18 months, would climb up the doors in their house using the molding at the sides to shimmy all the way to the top, where she would hang until rescued. She would do this at 3 a.m., sometimes.

Holy crap.

'Suela - your coworker is insane. I can't believe she pretends to talk in her sleep or that she so obviously eavesdropped on your conversation with your new boss.

Maybe she was sleepwalking.

Thanks for the help, gang! How does this sound?

I'll come right out and say it: I DO see hostility and discrimination when a LGBT issue (or similar issue dealing with women, or African Americans, or another minority of some sort) is raised and straight men promptly come out of the woodwork to declare their belief that it's a non-issue and argue that the people who raised it should settle down and be happy with the status quo rather than asking for improvement. And do so repeatedly and vehemently, despite the alleged unimportance of the issue. It's not burning-crosses-in-the-front-yard/throwing-rocks-through-the-windows style overt hostility and discrimination, but whenever anybody questions the disproportionately small or outright absent representation given to a minority I can pretty much start a countdown to the appearance of a straight white man who (1) feels threatened by attention being focused on a problem or inequity that he's not on the losing end of, and (2) wishes everyone would just stop talking about it. It's an attempt to silence the voices of the "other" rather than letting them join the choir.

Now I know why I see author contests limited to US only. I ran a Twitter contest this morning, and I'm now sending a galley of the book to Brazil. Oops?

Matt, I like it.