The Gate at the Bottom of the Stairs (and other small tragedies)

Sadie's had a tough couple of days.  She tears across the room at an incredibly speedy crawl and her new goal seems to be to slip out of sight, whether it's around a corner or in another room.  I have been spending a good portion of my days chasing after her and hauling her back into the living room or the bed room or whatever other room we happen to be spending time in.  The weather hasn't helped either.  It has been incredibly humid these last few days (to go with the hundred degree heat) and so we've been stuck inside most of the time, which means that every time we walk past a door that leads to the outside world, Sadie starts to cry (or at least pretends to cry with a hysterical scream) and leans towards the window.  

This afternoon though, things went from bad to worse (at least from Sadie's point of view).  As Sadie has become obsessed with escaping she has also showed an obsession with the stairs.  I followed her up the stairs tonight and she can make it up to the second floor in about thirty seconds.  After dinner she crawled over to the stairs, ready to make an escape and was stopped in her tracks.  There was a baby gate.  She fussed.  She banged her hands on it.  She stood up, on her tippy toes, and tried to grab the handle.  Luckily the handle is so difficult to open that I had to be shown how to press the button and pull to get it to release and open.  Then she laid down on her stomach with her face pressed into the ground.  I sensed a tantrum coming.  We've had a lot of tantrums lately, some for far less upsetting developments.  Instead she lifted her head up and tried to slide through the one inch crack between the gate and the bottom stair.  Finally she gave up and showed the gate to her Dad.  He was not appropriately devastated by the gate's appearance.

Along with the gate, another gate has showed up on her play room door and she's found that the doors to the pantry, the bathroom and the den all close.  That just leaves Nani and Grumpa's living room, dining room and hallway.  That's hardly any fun at all!  But it's a far easier space to chase after her!