Later that afternoon, mere hours following a conversation about how children are in constant pursuit of death, Molly decided it was a good idea to climb into the base of the Exersaucer (AKA The Console of Doom or COD) while her brother towered above her inside the COD in the middle of an uncontrollable jumping frenzy. We pulled her out immediately shuddering at the thought of baby trampling and realized that the minions are at the age where they are completely dangerous to themselves and each other. I finally understand when a friend of Chris's, and father of three, announced that children are like monkeys on acid. I am aware that pre-parent me complained about rubber floored playgrounds and Darwinism, but the minions are now capable of turning pens into shivs and they head butt each other constantly, it's like prison here.
That being said, I decided to dedicate this week to baby-proofing the house.
Somewhat proud to say that this was not our handy-work!
Baby-Proofing Completed
- Baby Gates Up - Special thanks to my father for taking painstaking efforts and 3 trips to our house, and the hardware store ensuring that the gates didn't damage our banisters and fit easily against the walls when the minions are asleep so we can run loads of laundry without killing ourselves.*
- Book Shelves Secured to the Wall**
- All medicines and highly toxic products moved to high shelves in washroom.***
- Inserted 13 plastic safety plugs in various outlets around the house, including one on the top of the electric stove, even though I know that if Molly or Jack manage to climb onto the stove unsupervised to electrocute themselves in the outlet that I've already failed about 5 times as a parent.
- Installed Safety Swivel Outlet covers for all outlets in the nursery.
- Installed regular outlet covers for all outlets in the house that didn't have covers.****
- Moved all super breakable stuff or things that we really like off of the bottom 2 shelves in the living room or over to my parent's house for a few years.
- Temperature on hot water turned down to 49 degrees C or 120 degrees F.
Baby-Proofing to Complete
- Eye hook on door to music room to protect Chris's records, musical instruments and prevent possible death by giant amplifier.
- Cabinet & Drawer latches in bathrooms and kitchen.
- Poison control on programmed onto speed dial, cell and house phone.
- Put special squeeze door handles on bathroom doors and office door.
- Figure out how to hide electric cords for floor lamps.
Questions I Have About Baby-proofing
- Are toilet locks really necessary?*****
- Are faucet protectors worth the cost/ necessary? Should we get one for the bath that they'll never use?
- I read something about keeping one kitchen cupboard unlocked that contained things like plastic containers and bowls to allow the kids to explore, is it worth it to avoid total household lock-down?
- How do I teach the minions to be nice to my 14 year old cat, and that he has claws...so far he just moans in displeasure when they try to pet him (AKA pull his tail, ears, poke him in the eyes and squeeze his cat belly as hard as they can)? Or is this a lesson that he'll teach them himself, much to our horror?
- What am I missing?
- They're totally going to still hurt themselves on something we haven't thought of, aren't they?
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*We're taking bets on the first adult to fall down the stairs over the baby gates if anyone is interested.
**I'm not sure if I am going to be thanking my father, who also secured the book shelves, based on his comments about how he hopes that I'm happy about book shelf location and how I may have to just "paint around them" or leave them be should we ever move.
***Thank you to our friend, PMM, for telling me the horrifying story about how although his mother hid, locked and stacked fermentation tablets in the highest possible cabinet of the kitchen that he still managed to get them and ingest them while she was in the washroom because he thought they were scotch mints.
****Yes, we've been in the house for over 3 years now and this was still outstanding until today. Does it make it any less savage that most of these plug outlets are partially covered by furniture or that I had purchased the plug plate covers in August while I was still pregnant and that they've sat in a plastic bag on our back porch ever since waiting to be installed?
*****Says the woman who grew up in the house with plumbing emergencies from my brother flushing a novelty over-sized Toucan Soap down the toilet and a dog who dumped his Kong chew toy down the toilet.
