Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Parents have the best intentions in mind when they take their children to certain educational or touristy destinations.  They want their kids to see something amazing, or even learn something while having fun.

However, something oddly bizarre happens to children when they go anywhere like this.  They get overstimulated and act like the bad children in Willy Wonka as if someone pumped the oxygen with pixie sticks sugar candy, steroids and strong liquor.  This causes seemingly normal children to freak out, turning angry and ready to fight.*

What Chris and I witnessed when we took Molly and Jack to The Vancouver Aquarium is akin to discovering that cool new acquaintance turns "whiskey mean" and that you need to go home before he reaches the bottom of drink 4.  That being said, we all know someone or have heard stories about specific types of alcohol because of its Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde properties.

Children destinations are supposed to be fun, but often lead to tears after parents dig their heels in refusing to give up and leave, having spent too much money to walk away from an educational excursion. This leads to the child equivalent of bad adult drinking behaviour, and we experienced all of this in a short hour and a half trip to the Aquarium.

Adult Drinking Trait: People who get weepy and cry about their life when they drink too much red wine.
Child Aquarium Equivalent: Two little girls, about 7 years old, sobbed in front of the jellyfish tank crying because "I....I...just want to go home!"  Their parents suggested going to see just two more things.  This lead to full blown tantrums.


Adult Drinking Trait: The Whiskey Means - People who like to fight when they've had too much whiskey.
Child Aquarium Equivalent: At the penguin display a 2 and a half year old boy kept on grabbing at Molly's stroller, the only person bothered was Chris and the boy's mother who began to yell at him and then released him back into the crowd.  Two minutes later he walked back over to Molly and slapped her in the face.  To Molly's credit, she didn't cry, she just gave him this, What the F is wrong with you, look which I was unaware a nine month old was capable of.  The slapper's mom "wisely" demanded  that he apologize to Molly which he adamantly refused to do**, and started kicking and screaming inches from her face until she finally dragged him away.

Miss Molly, checking out the Penguins with her dad. Mere moments before the slapping incident.

Adult Drinking Trait: Absinthe equals black out juice.  It makes people hallucinate, freak out and then forget about it later on.
Child Aquarium Equivalent: We were excited to show the minions all of the neat animals at the aquarium.  After the penguins and the otter*** we decided to go underground to see the beluga whales and the dolphins.  We sat on a bench in front of the display window as the first beluga swam by.  Jack yawned.  Molly had a nervous breakdown.  Clearly this mammal was too big to exist in her world.  We, dumbly, thought it might be a one off and after calming her down sat her in front of the window one more time - just to be sure.  There were screams so loud they could break glass, followed by sobbing and head burrowing into my shoulder.  I took her away from the windows and calmed her down while Chris and Jack went to go check out the dolphins.  A short trip in the car on the way back to the hotel left Molly happy, refreshed and seemingly unscathed  by her recent trip.

Adult Drinking Trait: One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila - Floor - we all have seen the T-shirts and I know very few people who are over 30, unless they are vacationing in Mexico, who still drink Tequila because of how it knocks them out.
Child Aquarium Equivalent: When Chris and I decided that enough was enough and Molly had decided that she hated anything that lives underwater we tried to make our way out of the labyrinth that is the Aquarium.  As we finally approached the exit a little girl, about 5 years old, fell onto Jack's stroller.  Her father picked her up and told her to watch where she was going.  The girl threw herself onto the floor in front of us and started screaming, "I DON'T CARE!"  Clearly she was lying.


*It's the child equivalent of what happens to couples at IKEA.
**Cause clearly she deserved it, sitting there all smug unable to speak looking at penguins.
***Who spent close to the entire time we were at the aquarium cleaning his nether regions.  Apparently this otter thinks that cleanliness is next to Godliness.

Thief In the Night

I remember, not too long ago, when the act of disturbing other patrons of a hotel in the middle of the night was in direct correlation to the amount of alcohol consumed, the number of people present and the hour of the night.  We didn't feel that bad about the noise and generally toned things down around last call and if ever anyone complained we either shut things down or tried to be quiet.

I even count the Candy Orgy of 2011, when I was sober, pregnant and designated driver to a bunch of drunkards who decided that it was a good idea to buy a ridiculous amount of candy* and then race shopping carts in the parking lot of a Walgreens.  I didn't participate, but I was there, asleep on a chair while those around me ate Sugar Mountain.

Source: flickr.com Via: akeg on: creativecommons.org

Now we're parents and vacations with the kids are a little different.  After travelling all day Chris and I tried to be responsible (exhausted) adults and went to bed early**.  We were horrified when Molly woke up screaming just after midnight.  We have a fairly effective pit crew to get awake babies changed, fed and back to bed within about 15 minutes on a regular basis, but this time we couldn't get her to stop crying.  So we took shifts walking, rocking and soothing Molly for about 45 minutes to an hour until she finally fell back asleep.

While we tried to calm down our inconsolable little girl we heard others in the hotel rooms around us waking up, talking, and probably cursing us for being the a-holes with a screaming baby that we couldn't get to shut up.  I thought about how we'd have to avoid eye contact with rooms anywhere near us while Molly wailed her infamous siren scream.  The only person who she didn't disturb was Jack who slept soundly less than 20 feet away.

Once Molly began to settle down we heard a series of cars locking and doors slamming in the parking lot just outside our room.  Thinking back to the good ol' days back on Sugar Mountain I figured it was people arriving home from the bar and was relieved.  After all, it was only 1AM on the Friday of a long weekend, and Molly was almost asleep again.  Noise wise, we probably hadn't done anything too much worse than the night owls returning from the bar.  As soon as she dropped off to sleep Chris and I fell back into bed.

In the light of the morning I discovered that Molly's first tooth had finally broken through her gums.  Once Chris was up I showed him and we both felt better knowing why she was crying as opposed to a random act of crazy baby behaviour.

Everything was coming up Milhouse as we climbed into the rental car to meet Chris's mum and grandmother for brunch.  Unfortunately, that's when we discovered that our rental car had been broken into and our GPS system was missing.  There was no sign of forced entry but we found all of the ash tray, glove compartment and drink consoles opened in the car.

It's the chicken and egg theory as to whether the thieves woke up Molly or whether she aided and abetted them by screaming through the break-in while we paced the floors, awake, mere feet away from our robbers.

We went to the drug store, unfortunately not for candy snacks, but to purchase a new GPS unit.   I'm almost 50% sure that there wouldn't have been a break in had there been a group of engaging young people shopping cart racing in the parking lot, just saying.
 


*Including an over-sized gelatin Hello Kitty lolly pop that was the only item that wasn't consumed in the glut of Candyggedon.
**Is a 9PM bed time a little less weak if I mentioned that Chris had two beers and I had a glass of wine in front of a How I Met Your Mother rerun before we went to bed?  Didn't think so, but I thought I'd try.

This Land is Your Land, Dorks

Hiking is one of my favorite hobbies and I didn't want to stop because we had kids.  Chris and I were hoping to get as much hiking in this year while we could still strap the minions to ourselves before next season when they'll want to walk on their own and we'll be forced to hike without them or travel much shorter less adventurous terrain at a much slower pace.

Although Chris and I spend a lot of time walking around town with the minions strapped to our chests*, a couple of hours running errands or wandering city streets is very different than hiking a nature trail.  We learned this the hard way, forgetting that the last time we hiked with the children was in October when they weighed about a third of what they do now.

Chris on a hike in the Spring of 2009

Last week I spent some time researching a hike that would be a good length that was fairly close to the city.  Pre-baby times we would generally hike10-14 KMs at a stretch with some rugged terrain.  I can be overly ambitious in my hiking exploits.  There were some incidents on hiking and canoe trails where Chris has not appreciated my need to complete 20-25km in an afternoon.** Also, once you acknowledge that trails can be poorly marked, a short trail can suddenly get a lot longer.  I figured I'd scale it back a little committing us to an 8.6km hike at Albion Hills just North West of the City.  I used the conservation area website to get ratings on trails, unaware that said trails would be poorly marked and primarily for mountain bike riding.

My first clue to the fact that these were in fact mountain biking trails should have been when my brother called me to try to locate us at the trail head and asked, "Does your trail map have a picture of a giant dork riding a bike on the front of it?"

In the first 10 minutes of our hike I decided, with Jack strapped to me, to follow an incorrect trail marker into the centre of a bog where the only thing growing was scratchy raspberry canes while the rest of our crew watched in horror, mocked me and walked around the swampy lagoon while I hiked on with two full "soakers".  Two hours later, with only a 15 minute break and no great space to relax for a few minutes we felt like we had taken on too much.  My only solace was when my brother tried to spin and catch his hat and accidentally punched himself in the crotch.

The trail was disappointing and confusing, poorly maintained with lots of rocks and tree roots.***  Being the clumsy oaf that I am I managed to go trip on a tree root, thankfully the only thing that was hurt was my ankle, my hands and my pride.  I managed to complete an instinctual-intense plank (essentially landing in a push-up position) on my way to the ground protecting Jack from injury.  It was my scream of horror that made Jack cry, not my fall and thankfully he calmed down almost instantly (after I checked every inch of his body to make sure he was okay).

By this point Molly had decided that she had enough of the trail and that she wanted to go home.  We assessed the map and found that 2 hours of hiking had brought us only 60% of the way.  We decided to cut back as quickly as we could, Molly screaming and me swearing about my ankle, and were turned around only 1 more time by the poorly marked trails.  I was disappointed in the views and ourselves for failing at a hike that we could have completed in no time pre-babies.

When we got home I researched the hike on non-conservation websites and found that others had also found the trails confusing and that the trail was much longer than indicated because of how it was maintained and marked.  Mountain bikers posted comments about annoying hikers taking up the trails.  I feel a little bit better and we're going to leave Albion Hills to the dorks on bikes from now on.


*I know a lot of people have heard all sorts of crazy things about Attachment Parenting since the Time Magazine Article, however if you look past the extremism and media hoopla some of the ideas, like baby wearing aren't so crazy. I have to admit I wear Jack mostly for convenience, however I like the closeness and contact I get from baby wearing.  And if anyone knows where I can get a baby sling that will support Jack once he gets over 25lbs I would be very appreciative!  http://attachmentparenting.org/principles/principles.php
**Which was around the time he enforced a hiking limit of 10-14KM distance total.
***The map became even more difficult to read after Molly tried to eat it.

Walk the Line

The more time I spend baby-proofing the more I realize that it's like a black hole that never ends.  Each time I think I have a room secured the girl child finds new and interesting ways to show me she can "take things to the next level".  I've been dedicating about half an hour a day to baby-proofing yet my to-do list keeps growing.

When does baby-proofing cross the line into full blown paranoia?  I know I haven't reached that point yet, maybe by the time they reach high school?  Baby-proofing is not a replacement for watching your children, however I've come discover that it's generally what you need to give you that extra 3 seconds to prevent major bodily harm.*

Baby-Proofing is Disgusting-Proofing
Yesterday I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth while Jack took his bath and Molly crawled around the room beside me.  I looked down to see that Molly had pulled the toilet brush out from behind the toilet and was about to shove it into her mouth.  Luckily I snatched it out of her hands, but not without a disappointed shriek and crocodile tears as I secured the toilet brush on top of the high cabinet in the bathroom. When I tried to move the plunger I realized that it is too tall to fit into or on top of either bathroom cabinet.  I may have to secure it to a high part of the bathroom wall using one of those broom holder wall mounts.

Baby-Proofing is Murder-Proofing
Molly's disappointment didn't last long.  While I was securing the toilet brush on top of the cabinet Molly discovered that the wooden toilet paper holder is light enough for her to lift and swing around her brother's head in an attempt to bludgeon him while he bathes.**  It is now being stored on top of the toilet tank.

Sadly this cute duck bathtub faucet cover can't save Jack from his homicidal sister.

Baby-Proofing is Suicide-Proofing
I was so proud of cleverly measuring and securing the baby gates with my dad so that the 14 year old cat could still get up and down the stairs to his litter and his food while the children could not get under without a great deal of force and contortion.  Until last week when Molly played above me while I swept and mopped the stair below.  She turned herself around and tried to get under the baby gate, but she couldn't thanks to our handiwork.  Only I'm not sure what's worse: a child falling down the stairs or getting snared in the mouse-trap/noose we've created to "protect" her.

I know what you're thinking.  That baby could totally fit under there.  That would be the case if either of my children had remotely normal sized heads, but they don't.

Thankfully our little mouse has moved on to collecting litter and mud off the bottom of our shoes in addition to balls of cat hair pulled directly from Pan's belly.  We suspect she's building a nest.

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*Or take a picture of the different ways your child tries to kill themselves.
**Most parents get to spend their time worrying about the child who is physically in the bath rather than the maniac crawling around the floor.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

One afternoon in the mid 1990's teenage me went into my mother's top dresser drawer (her sewing drawer) to get some supplies to replace a missing button.  I grabbed an appropriate sized needle from her tomato shaped pin cushion, pulled out a pair of scissors and scoured the drawer for an appropriate sized button.  I don't know if my mother still does this, but she used to store spare buttons in old pill bottles.  I dumped out the contents of two bottles onto her bed, unable to find an appropriate match, and I went back to the drawer and in the very back, behind some make up remover I found an additional 3 pill bottles.  Jackpot!

Only, not really.  I pulled out the bottles to find out that they were each clearly marked and contained first teeth for myself and my two siblings.  Being 15, and not very sentimental at the time I felt weirded out, returned the teeth to the back corner of the drawer not saying a word and secretly suspected  my mom of being some sort of freaky bone collector.*  Nowadays some people save teeth in hope of providing stem cells to treat diseases like leukemia and other blood disorders.  

As an adult I find many of the things that my mother has saved over the years amazing, hilarious and surprising.  Our crappy attempts at crafts still clutter up the shelves of my childhood home.  When my sister had children we were shocked to discover that many of the toys that my mother had donated to charity miraculously reappeared for her grandchildren to play with after years of hiding in the attic.

Since the minions came into existence there are many things I have recorded, saved and others that I've thought about, but decided against putting in the time capsule.  I'm trying to ride the fine balance between caring mom who wants to preserve her offspring's childhood and crazy hoarder with way too many weird items.

This note was sent to my mother from my kindergarten teacher.   This seemingly insignificant note home is paramount to understanding me the child and the person that I am today.  28 years later I continue to experience intense rage and freak out over hosiery malfunctions.  If you ever see me grappling with a pair of leotards stand back!

Items that I Didn't Save

• Pregnancy tests - I had mixed feelings about storing dried urine, in retrospect I probably should have just taken a digital photo to put in the baby books
• Umbilical cords when they fell off**
• Welcome baby cards.  Many were addressed to both babies and I didn't know how to divide them up, so I kept them on display for a few weeks and then recycled
• Some breast milk - I wish I had frozen some, so I could feed it to the minions when they were ill or could use it on their cuts and scrapes, especially now that Molly is crawling

Items that I Have Saved/Will Be Saving & Recording

• Hospital bracelets 
• Ultrasound photos
• Medical Immunization records (cause that just makes sense)
• Baby Books/ Calendar of firsts with dates - using my baby book as a guideline for teething symptoms, first time crawling etc. has been a godsend and puts a family perspective on What to Expect in the First Year
• Locket of hair from first hair-cut
• Report cards and notes from school
• School pictures
• First shoes, my mom gave me my first shoes as a baby shower gift
• A million photos, I'm trying to slowly accumulate photos of the minions with relatives and friends for their baby books and beyond
• The "best" cards they make, art projects or crafts
• Badges, patches, trophies and awards
• Audio recordings of their voices, laughs and coos during various ages
• Favorite childhood toy(s)
• A birthday card from Chris and I for each birthday with personalized messages
• Finger prints of both children
• Letters to Santa

I am wondering if there is anything else that I'm going to kick myself for not saving. Or when is the right time or way to pass these items onto the kids at a time when they'll appreciate them and not be embarrassed by them, because I'd hate to save these things to only have them destroyed in a fit of teenage insensitivity or embarrassment.

I'm still on the fence about the teeth, maybe I'll save them and have them inserted into a pair of matching "teeth maracas".***  

* I think in my cynical teenage way I suspected something like the tooth fairy episode of The Family Guy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_orfBLh7qY 

**I asked Chris if he wanted to save these and he gave me a look like I'd asked about saving their first dirty diapers.

***In the 1980s people used to bronze baby shoes all the time, this is the evolution of that.

Kiss From A Rose - Happy Mother's Day, I'm Sorry - Part 2

As an adult I pride myself on being a thoughtful gift giver, much to my husband's detriment (it drives him nuts that I never ask for a list and it stresses him out when he's buying for me).  It wasn't always that way, especially on Mother's Day.  When I was really small and incapable of going out on my own to purchase a gift for my mother, I wouldn't ask my older sister or father for help, or money, I'd just re-gift her something of my own and make her a card.  For years I would give her old lady perfume samples that my grandmother had given me.*

Then one year she mentioned that she liked Nut Crackers and for the next several years at Christmas our house looked like Tschaikowski's Nut Cracker Ballet.**  I asked my mother about this last week and she simply said, "It was almost as bad as your sister and those stupid unicorns.".

When I was old enough to head out on my own to shop for my mom for Mother's Day, I continued my gifting solo, without additional money or help.  I'd go, on my bike, to this annual community school garage/craft sale and purchase whatever I could with about a week and a half's worth of allowance.  My $8-$10 dollars usually bought her some crummy craft along with some over-priced, half dead flowers from the local grocery store along with 3 gummy feet for my personal consumption on my journey home.

This is a hand crafted loon was purchased for my mother at the above mentioned "craft sale".  I believe this year I had enough money left over for crummy flowers, smarties and 3 gummy feet.

After years of gifts like this my mom "suggested" that the kids go together and buy her some flowers, from a specific garden centre for the yard.  Well played.

I told Chris that he should help the kids find gifts for Mother's Day, but he wants to encourage them to be creative for at least one gift item each, because let's be honest, it's pure comic gold!

Mother's Day Card Hall of Shame

The poem above seems to indicate that I enjoyed flute music, I did not.  In the picture above my mom is the crowned blonde with the intense rouge and I am the brunette,  The title at the top says Queen for the Day!

Check out the amazing retro Getalong Gang note paper.

That drawing on the left, those are supposed to be kangaroos - and yes the little one is wearing a bow tie.

 

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*These are perfumes so sickeningly flowery and fragrant that a 70 something grandmother rejected them.  In addition to this my mother has very sensitive skin and can only wear one type of fragrance without breaking out in a rash. I'm pretty sure they burned her like acid as she enthusiastically put on some of her "new" perfume in front of me.
**An added bonus was that I was able to convince my younger brother that nut crackers had 2 purposes and would torment him around the holidays by leaving them on his bedside table while he slept.

Please Forgive Me & Happy Mother's Day...I'm So Sorry - Part 1

Last year on Mother's Day I was 5 and a half months pregnant.  When I suggested to Chris that we celebrate my first Mother's Day he just smiled at me and informed me, "You don't know what Mother's Day is yet sweetie." and gave me a condescending squeeze of the knee.  I protested (mildly) and informed him how I'd given up drinking, reduced my caffeine consumption from a giant tub of coffee in the morning followed by a series of smaller cups of liquid energy through-out the day to one small coffee in the morning and one small tea in the afternoon and how my 5 foot 1 frame was going to be carrying two full term babies in a matter of months.  He wasn't buying it.  So I brought out theories on how pregnancy is like running the world's longest marathon.*  He reminded me that people don't celebrate their performance in a marathon until they finish.  Defeated.

Source: flickr.com Via: Loozrboy On: creativecommons.org

This year, I'm getting my Mother's Day, having been a mom for over 9 months now, I know that I've earned it.  It's been a wonderful, but challenging time since I've officially earned the rank of "Mom", so I'm going to start what I think may become an annual Mother's Day tradition, A year in Motherhood - things I now feel that I owe my mother an apology for:

Dear Mom,

I'm SO sorry for:

• Being a month overdue....I only had 38 weeks of pregnancy, I can't imagine what another 6 weeks would have felt like.
• Any back pain you have ever experienced, from pregnancy & beyond, apparently one of my pelvic bones is re-aligning much slower than the other, Thank You Molly!
• Morning Sickness, that lasts all day, for nearly 5 months.
• Heart burn and acid re-flux
• The hottest summer in the history during pregnancy!**
• Colic...after experiencing over 400 hours of constant screaming that you can not calm, cannot diagnose, cannot explain, but can set your watch to, I finally get it.  I feel lucky and loved to have survived it.
• Sleepless nights
•  Poo in the bath tub.  I don't want to know how many times I have had to fish out and flush, followed by intense scrubbing of the baby bath and my own tub.
• Terrible timing for disgusting things like blow out diapers and spit up everywhere mere moments before the sitter arrives and a formal event is waiting.
• Hair Pulling
• Eye Gauging 
• Finding disgusting things and putting them in my mouth.***
• Necklace & earring pulling
• Goober marks on shoulders
• Sneezing in your face
• Coughing in your face
• Tantrums or pouting of any kind, ever.****

And thank you for giving me a break whenever I need it and for never saying I told you so!

P.S. I'm still not sorry for wearing black lipstick as a teenager.

*This blog entry has a great comparison: http://www.runnerstrials.com/2011/07/11/pregnancy-vs-marathon-training/
**Thank you to my mom for clipping a newspaper article confirming how hot it was last summer, so I can prove to my children that I'm not full of it.
***Keep your minds out of the gutter people!
****I was unaware, until the birth of Molly, that pouting is a facial expression that is not learned and comes naturally to babies.

Livin' on the Edge

This weekend we went for a walk in James Gardens with my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece and nephew.  For a good portion of the walk my 3 year old niece insisted on walking beside/in front of our double stroller so she could hold onto Molly and Jack's hands while we walked.  A very sweet gesture, albeit highly dangerous as she kept on positioning herself in front of the wheels of the stroller, stopping suddenly and absently cutting off the stroller in pursuit of various distractions around the park.  It didn't matter how many times she was warned by me, her parents, how often it was suggested that she play ahead with her brother, or hold someone else's hand, she was determined to be close to her cousins.

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!

Source: flickr.com via: storyvillegirl  on creativecommons.org

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.