Our last house was full of child safety products, you know, the stuff that didn't exist probably 15 years or so ago. Outlet covers. Cabinet locks. Safety door knobs. Blind cord covers. Extra locks. Our theory back then was we were outnumbered, usually three-to-one in the working parent home, by three curious and stubborn little boys. We did things like toddler proofing and toddler proofing some more and then had to adjust to things like this and this when they started to outsmart the system.
When we moved, most of that stuff got left behind. Actually, we passed it on to our good cousins Katie and Josh who are expecting their first little one in a few months. Share the sanity, right?
Those things did help keep me sane, especially in the early years of three boys less than 14 months apart. I didn't' have to worry about them getting into cabinets or things that could hurt them. I didn't have to worry about fingers or toys in outlets. The blind cords were rolled up, safely out of reach.
But like everything else, the boys were starting to outgrow it. Or outsmart it. Even when outlets were left uncovered, at other people's houses or on vacations, the boys didn't try to play with them anymore. If they bothered the blind cords, it was more to pull it out and watch it drop than to wrap it around themselves (think the twins' obsession with watching motion rather than actually playing with it, because that's more what it was about). They sometimes tried to get into locked cabinets, but only to open and close the doors, not to bother the contents inside.
So when we moved, we decided to move on. The boys are older now. They're getting past some of those initial hurdles of listening and following directions. They understand rules. They can be reminded or redirected into leaving most everything alone.
So this house is virtually un-childproofed. And it's kind of nice. You don't have to unlock a kitchen cabinet to get into it. You can get an extra towel without unlocking the cabinet first. There aren't any blinds, so we don't have to worry about the cords coming unrolled any time we opened or closed them. You don't have to pry out an unwilling outlet cover every single time you want to plug something, like the vacuum, into the outlet. It's kind of nice, actually.
We did bring a few tricks into the new house.
The twins' door locks are still reversed. Sawyer would be up all hours of the night if we didn't lock him inside. And there would be no quiet time or containment, say in the event I decide to clean the house (it happens, occasionally) or if there's a large mess (think big drink spill) that needs to be cleaned up without little boy footprints running all around and through it. They had long since outsmarted the safety door knob covers and the baby gates, so this was pretty much the only containment option.
Our pantry door in the kitchen still has a key lock on it. If it didn't, Sawyer would eat cereal and bread all day long with abandon. And probably throw up everywhere on top of it. I keep it unlocked most of the time when we're in the house, but it still gets locked on mornings when we're trying to sleep in and the boys are up or on days when we need to get some work done in another part of the house or outside (like when I mow the yard).
Same goes for the refrigerator - a bungee cord still locks it on occasion, too. Not all the time, because we want the boys to learn control, but at times when we can't watch them as closely as we need to. Let's just say that Sawyer has a sneaky side we didn't see until we moved over here. The boy can tiptoe from the kids playroom to the kitchen, open the door and retrieve a full pitcher of kool-aid and return to the playroom without making a sound. He's that good. And miraculously enough, he usually doesn't even spill it. He wants it that badly. Some may get on his shirt, but none on the carpet or the floor. So the refrigerator has it's moments of being locked, too.
We still have extra locks on exterior doors, just for safety. There's a chain lock at the top of the sunroom door for two reasons. The kiddie pool is out back, often filled with water. The gates on each side of our fence are chain link, and our boys can climb right over it. Neither one is good without close supervision. The front and back door both have security storm doors that aren't very attractive but have proven exceptionally functional - they have double-key locks on them - so you can lock them from the inside with a key. Our last door in need of additional security is the one between the house and the garage. The boys don't need to be out there, and the lure of icees in the small chest freezer out there is sometimes too much for Sawyer to stand. We're in the process of getting a double-key deadbolt for that door, too.
So that's where we are now. A lot of the little things that used to be everywhere are gone. There's more rules in this house, and the boys are slowly starting to understand them. The big things that keep the boys safe and protected are still in place.
But it's a much more open home, where you don't have to unlock every single cabinet or uncover every single thing you use. It's just a home, where you eat and sleep and play and live. Just one more way the boys continue to move forward ...
