Billy conquers the stairs...

Billy is learning so much everyday!
This past week...he has gotten into climbing, on everything he can! We already knew he liked perching, as he has been perching on the back of the couch and on our shoulders often. And he likes boxes....anytime we get anything that comes in a box, we keep the box. Joey sleeps in them and Billy divides his time between sleeping in them and on them.
I left the step stool in the laundry room next to a set of shelves...I hear Billy's bell and realize he has climbed the step stool and has ventured onto the top shelf! I had to make sure we moved the step stool because we store plastic bags on the shelves, and he has gotten stuck in them before. Once the step stool was moved, he still climbed it, but would just sit like he was royalty on the top shelf looking around.
To the BIG NEWS of the WEEK!!!!!
BILLY KNOWS HOW TO CLIMB THE STAIRS YAY!
We have tried to introduce him to the stairs slowly...as he still gets confused sometimes. He will climb onto a windowsill, and fall asleep. A couple hours later, will wake up, try to feel for the ground under the ledge, and when he never does, he will cry until we come get him. It is very sad, but the fear not knowing what is under him or how far down it is, stops him from jumping.
The same type of philosophy goes with the stairs. Billy has walked to the bottom of the stairs, and we have even tried to "help" him walk up a couple, by moving his front paws up. He typically in the past has just sat at the bottom of the stairs, "looking" up. A couple times he has reached his paw up but could not touch the top of the next step, so he has given up on figuring it out, probably assuming it is a wall of some sort.
Thanks to our old house, the stairs are creaky. On Friday, I was taking laundry upstairs when I heard his little bell ringing, sounding a lot closer than it should be with him downstairs. I looked out into the hallway, and Billy is just trotting down the hallway, moving his head from side to side. He had heard me climb the stairs, and followed me up! He walked around the hallway a bit, than explored the guest room, climbed onto the bed and promptly fell asleep.
He has spent the last day climbing the stairs, and hanging out in the guest room sleeping on the bed. Our guest room is a "cat room" basically, we keep an old quilt on it for the kitties to lay on, and they spend a lot of time on the bed!
Billy can't yet climb down the stairs, which is the problem!! He sits at the top and just washes himself, or sleeps. I am working on teaching him how to get down on his own so he can be independent. I started by trying to talk him down the stairs. We have three stairs, a landing, and than about 10 more. I was able to talk him down the first three, and he sat on the landing like he expected me to just carry him down the rest. :)
I tapped the step underneath him a few times and he finally took a step down. I repeated it the entire way down, and he was able to make it.This morning, we woke up to find him sleeping on the guest bed. Later in the day, he climbed the stairs again. He is getting awesome at going up, and loving exploring something new...so I am just going to have to keep working on getting him to climb down on his own!