Eiffel Tower at night with a 13 yearold and her grandmother

Oh dear mona,, no,, you read somewhere about taking the stairs to the second level, and that is about 700 steps. I did the stairs with my 13 yr old, but i was only 45. Many older folks report faring fine doing the stairs, they are wide enough for people to pass you , and you can stop and rest if need be.
Lines right now are reported daily to be over 1 1/2 hours to more then 2 hours+ long. Yes, there is a seperate elevator to the top , from the second level. You can purchase tickets for that on the second level, but also apparently they are not selling them to people in the line for the stairs.

PS , my 13 yr old ran up the stairs easily, kept coming back and telling me to "hurry up" and laughing at me, but I made it!

What time of year? That makes a big different - in both the crowds, and the time of day that you'll have nightfall. Yes, you can buy a ticket to walk up the two flights of stairs and buy a ticket from there to the top. There's usually a line to take the elevator to the top, so you'll have to plan accordingly.

Dina, we have a communication problem here, one cannot reach the second level by climbing up only two flights of stairs, its dozens of flights of stairs. one flight of stairs usually means only 10-15 stairs at the most.

I will second the time of day comment, only on the second trip to Paris (Both in early June) did I get to see the tower at "night" at 9-10 PM it was still somewhat light out, and our jet-lagged bodies had trouble making it that late. I will add though, if you can handle it, pack a picnic and a bottle of wine and you can join the hundreds of locals that show up to do the same, sitting in the Champ du Mars.