With my daughter’s ever persistent desire to climb the stairs, she will take advantage of any and every opportunity to zip up the stairs. From my perspective it seems like she watches and waits for the barricade to be moved or not in place yet. She is especially on the watch in mornings as the barricade is moved often while people run up to get clothes and toys. When she notices that the furniture or other barricading objects (I often use a large board slid between two stair posts) are out of place, she literally races towards the stairs and tries to climb the stairs as fast as she can. Although she only occasionally makes it all the way up before being caught, it amazes me how frequently she finds her way to the stairs during the day.
On one occasion she had made it all the way up the stairs and into her bedroom (shared with and dominated by her brother) and was playing with the toys that her brother so kindly spilled (from his toy box) all over the floor. I did not realize that her brother had moved the barricade (to let her up because she “wanted to go up stairs”) and that she had noticed. I quickly scanned the main level without seeing her and then I run up the stairs. I found her sitting in the middle of a pile of toys shaking another toy while chewing on yet another. When I said to her, “there you are,” she looked up at me, gave me her best toothy grin, and continued playing. I picked her up (she was still clinging to her two toys) and as I was carrying her back down stairs I told her that she should not go up stairs by herself because she could fall and get hurt. She grinned as if to say, “just try and stop me mom!”