Straight from the Bottle : Childproofing

Childproof O'Clock

GirlsGoneChild — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:45:00 GMT

I feel like I'm coming full circle with this post as one of my very first SFTB posts was about childproofing the house for Archer, almost three years ago. The difference being, Archer was nine-months older than Fable at the time.

I heard that second children were faster to crawl, walk, talk, do pretty much everything, but I wasn't really prepared for the holy-shit-how-did-fable-crawl-into-the-bathroom-so-fast-to-teethe-on-the-toilet-seat-she-was-playing-at-my-feet-two-seconds-ago this early in her bobblerhood. (ed: bobbler = baby/toddler.) Archer didn't crawl until he was thirteen-months, walk until he was seventeen-months and even then he never got into anything dangerous and/or disgusting.

I seriously could have left him home alone for days and he would have likely played quietly by himself with his various baby toys, before putting himself down for three-hour naps and twelve-hour sleeps, never once getting involved with anything dangerous and/or disgusting.

Fable on the other hand...

...doesn't understand the point of toys whatsoever.

Teethers? Why put something clean and cute in her mouth when there are dirty shoes to lick the bottoms of?

Rattles? Psh. The only rattle Fable wants is a bottle of cake sprinkles, which we have forbade ever since the time she cracked one open with her razor teeth. I'm constantly scooping, wiping, grabbing pretty much every object Fable decides to make her own which means the time has come to childproof the hell out of our house...

Although this time? Underwear on the cabinets and maxi pads on the corners of tables aren't going to cut it. Clearly, we're dealing with a professional here, which is why I come to you for guidance.

seconds before she put this leaf into her mouth...

What are your finest childproofing tips? What items do you suggest for childproofing? Do you think childproofing is ever really successful? I mean, clearly, I have to keep an eye on her at all times, regardless of how many sockets are covered with plastic, right? I'm especially curious to hear from those of you with second children because like I've said before, childproofing a house that is full of four-year-old toys kind of seems like an impossible task.

Oy. I truly suck at this part of parenting.

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P.S. Thank you all for such supportive comments on my last post. It was such a relief hearing your stories. Solidarity, sisters.

Keeping Archer's Marbles Away From Fable's Mouth

GirlsGoneChild — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:12:00 GMT

Today I caught Archer playing with his marbles at Fable's feet as she grasped for them with her chubby little hands. In .05 seconds I leapt on Archer, tackling him to the ground.

"I told you not to play with your marbles anywhere even close to Fable's vicinity!"

"Because Fable could choke on the marbles and die, right Mommy?"

"Um... What?"

"Because Fable could swallow a marble and it would choke and die and then it wouldn't be very nice at all."

"Um... Yes? Yes. So... Please don't do that anymore."

"Yeah. Because it's NOT NICE!"

Archer spent the rest of the afternoon playing marbles on the other side of the living room as Fable kicked her little legs against her bouncy seat. But it got me thinking, wondering what I'm going to do when Fable is old enough to crawl. I never childproofed the house when Archer was a baby because I didn't really need to. Because he didn't really care to try to get into anything and plus, nothing of mine was really of interest. Nothing besides my shoes and tampons (great toy, very useful) and it wasn't like he was going to choke on those. Fable on the other hand is a second child and second children, I'm finding, want nothing more than to get all up in their big brothers' bidnis.

Hooray for Archer's stuff! And while we're at it, hooray for tea parties! And leg warmers! And cute headbands and flowers and wonderfulness!

"At some point you're probably going to have to take away Archer's marbles," my mom said to me months ago, during a mother/daughter marble shopping-spree. (It's amazing how HARD it is to find marbles these days and how easy it is to find dolls that talk. So backwards and lame.)

"Yeah. I'll just take them away when she's crawling and stuff," I agreed and left it at that.

Taking away Archer's marbles seemed like a perfectly logical, obvious sollution until Archer's marbles became his greatest love and now I'm fucked. Because how the hell can I take away my darling son's greatest love? I mean... I can't. Can I?

It's true Fable's far from crawling but she does this thing where she kind of half pounces, half crashes her face into the floor and onto various objects of her affection so even though she's immobile she's still pretty damn effective in her reach. Especially when it comes to Archer and his toys.

I'm gonna get you, sucka.

So here's the stitches, bitches. I have a baby who likes grabbing for Archer's stuff and an Archer whose stuff happens to be mainly of the marble variety these days. This is a situation that is new to me as a relatively new mother of two. It's quite easy to keep one child away from dangerous objects in that you just move them out of reach. Quite another when you have older brothers with small parts all over the floor and in all reachable places all day long.

So what to do? Small house. Babes share a bedroom. Kid's favorite toys are small, round, glass beads perfect for swallowing. Baby loves grabbing Archer's stuff and putting everything in her mouth.

Hm... Not ideal.

P.S. I think I'm beginning to realize why it's so impossible to find marbles in local toy and drug stores these days. Fewer dilemmas in the sibling/safety department. Smart thinking, Rite Aid.

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Childproofing For Mummies

GirlsGoneChild — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:28:00 GMT

When Archer was old enough to sit-up, the very first thing every family, friend, and pediatric specialist said was “OOOOOOOH. You know what you have to do, NOW, don’t you?”

“What. Tell me. What do I have to do?”

“Childproof the house!”

Obviously I rolled my eyes. The kid was barely able to sit up on the bed without toppling face first into the comforter, but I was polite and nodded and waved and thanked the peanut gallery for their advice.

“Totally,” I said. “I’m on it.”

And so I did what any respectable DIY mother would do. I created a childproofed home based on materials I no longer needed or used… items I should have thrown out but for whatever reason did not.

1. Scrunchies/ Hair-ties With an Embarrassing Amount of Hair Knotted in Them: One day, while ordering a Soy Latte from Starbucks, I noticed that the hair tie around my wrist was knotted with hair. And not a few little hairs but one giant clump of hair. The barista eyed my wrist as I removed the money from my wallet and I shyly rotated the hair-tie disaster away from her judgmental eyes. I knew what she was thinking. I was a cheap-ass who couldn’t afford to buy myself some new non-hairy hair-thingies. So I promptly bought some new ones next door and for whatever reason never tossed the old, which ended up working out because the hairy-hair-ties make great locks for the kitchen sink cabinets.

2. Maxi Pads: Some genius thought to include free maxi pads with Tampax (What kind of tampon user switch-hits with pads? Isn’t sending a free maxi pad with a box of tampons like giving out a free O’Doul’s with every six-pack of Heineken?) Regardless, our bathroom drawers were overflowing with “sample” packs of “sanitary napkins".

First off “sanitary napkin” is my least favorite thing to say. It makes me think of old women teaching sex-education. Second of all, I hate to waste anything I have been given for free hence the Always (with wings!) instant corner protection. Just cut, peel and stick! Works great on coffee table corners and dangerous dresser-edges.

3. Sexy Underwear That You Haven’t Worn Since Your Honeymoon/Single days/Ever: For all the places hairy-hair-ties can’t reach, sexy underwear will do the trick. Not only do g-strings have great elasticity but they can stretch to childproof several cabinets at a time!

I have also found that less coverage = more elasticity, thus the matching panty sets from Trashy Lingerie that look so pretty stretched across the cereal cupboard

Because let’s face it, the cotton thongs are way more comfortable than the satin and lace g-strings with ruffles and bows and braided lace made to snugly fit between your ass cheeks. Not to mention the fact that bows and lace should not be tucked away in dresser drawers when they could be put to good use. Don’t be afraid to rig your kitchen drawers and cabinets with the aforementioned unmentionables.

For a while friends who came over for dinner parties were a bit caught off guard.

“Wow. You and Hal have a kinky sex life.”

“Is this an art installation?”

“Please tell me these aren’t used.”

After explaining my approach to childproofing to our childless friends, they simply nodded, shrugged and thought I was a complete nutcase. But fuck it, man. It works. Archer, who is now eighteen months old, has yet to break through the “pretty little things” rigged acroess the kitchen cabinets. He can’t for the life of him undo the figure-eight hairy-hair-ties in the bathroom and as far as the maxi-pad corner-safety? Archer can bang his head against the corners of my desk all day long and not feel a thing.

And so what if my house resembles a college dorm/insane asylum, my little man is safe and snug and I saved approximately fourteen dollars and eighty-three cents.

WoooHoo! Everyone wins.

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