Well, it finally happened.

She's been getting so much more mobile recently. She still has trouble crawling forward, but that's not a problem of strength or even overall coordination so much as simply practicing and learning the particular motions involved. The issue is that she is not the least bit interested in learning to crawl: she'll flop and roll and shimmy until she gets where she wants to be, and in the meantime, she'll spend all her practice time on her feet, working on her balance and walking.

Standing is coming along very nicely: she can pull herself up, given a good handhold, and keep herself up indefinitely as long as she keeps a hand on something. Flat surfaces like tabletops are fine for balancing; she knows how to press her hand flat on the surface to get traction there. With the non-balancing hand, she can reach way over in any direction, grab a toy or poke a fan, and then get herself back upright. She can even stand without any kind of balance assistance for intervals of about five seconds at a time, though as she closes in on that duration she tends to get nervous and put her balance hand back down quickly.

She's got a pair of walk assist toys: one on wheels, which she's fine with when she's full of energy and alert, and one which simply slides, which is a bit easier for her when she's tired. She's pushed each of these toys around the entire living room, and definitely has the theory of walking, but she just as definitely wants some more practice to get good at it. The good news is that she's quite happy to practice her balance and her steps at almost every opportunity.

The thing is, despite all this newfound mobility, most of the time she's vertical, she has a parent or babysitter following right behind her, ready to catch her if her balance does fail. She plays games with falling: I'll sit her on my knee or something, and she'll quite deliberately lean forward for that fun moment of freefall before I catch her and sit her back up. In consequence, she has no idea that landing can hurt.

Nights aren't easy these days; she's strong-willed, and hates to fall asleep. We don't have the heart to do the kind of sleep training which involves letting her cry it out. In consequence, after a few attempts to put Olive into her own bed, we sometimes just let her stay in ours if it means she's quiet and happy.

You can see where this is going: we put her down off-center, on our queen-sized bed. Specifically, we put her on the side with a baby barrier specifically designed to stop a kid from rolling off. I was in there with her, trying to get her to calm down, and I was more tired than she was. She was rocking back and forth; I wasn't holding onto her tightly. She rocked a bit more strongly and rolled, twice, and went over the edge.

A thump, a moment of silence, and then screams from Olive: she did not like the sensation of falling off the bed at all.

There was no real damage, and she calmed down a few minutes later. (Parenthetically: she's a really good baby. She clearly still hurt, but she was exercising the strength of her will to prevent herself crying, because it wasn't necessary: both of us were right there, holding and soothing her.)

Every child falls out of bed sooner or later. It was inevitable: with more mobility comes more risk. I'd hoped to keep a close enough eye on her that it wouldn't happen until she was bigger, but she was a real trooper about it.

Tomorrow, she's going to get back on the horse.