She's waited 21 months to be able to tell us...

So, my dear little Charlotte learned how to crawl out of her crib.  We're not sure if this is yet the second incident of ballet class teaching children bad things - but it could be.  You start your kid in ballet and the first thing they teach them is to put their toe up on the bar.  This naturally leads to toe up on the crib and hey, look here, if I put my toe up and pull real hard with my arms I can climb up on the rail and perilously perch there until I (a) fall or (b) lower myself down in a controlled manner.  (These were the two outcomes of Charlotte's approaches).  This ballet business had the same effect on Elisabeth at about this age.

Doug, being a genius, figured out a way to rig up the crib to make it baby proof.  He took it apart, dropped the mattress all the way to the floor, then put the crib structure around the mattress with the railing dropped down.  Bam - a baby crate.  Worked like a charm for Elisabeth... who was apparently less interested in getting out than Charlotte - which is nothing short of shocking.

Charlotte is strong.  She pushed that whole crib away from the mattress far enough that she could shimmy right under.  Now, mind you, every night for her entire life we've ran some sort of white noise machine.  For probably 18 months it has been a humidifier.  So as I saw Charlotte shimmy underneath the crib rail and into freedom, I told Doug she was loose.  Upstairs he went, and when he got into her room she looked him in the eyes, with her "I'm really serious and I can kill with this glare" look and said, sternly, "OFF."  She turned it off, turned around and climbed back into her crib.  

And that was the end of the white noise.