1 Mother 2 Another

  I already posted today’s regular entry (see below), but I have to jot this mommy tip down while I’m thinking about it. I know, I did a slew of babyproofing entries several months ago when kiddo became mobile. But she’s recently grown, which means she stands taller in her crib, which means she can now turn the light in her room on and off. And on. And off. And on. The only thing that gives it away, as a matter of fact, is her breathy laughter on the baby monitor as she tries to do it quietly and not draw attention to herself.

Or the light cutting in and out under her door.

So after a huge Internet search I finally found a baby lock for light switches. Apparently there’s not a big market for them, since most sites had gadgets to make light switches more accessible to toddlers. I shudder. At any rate, if you’ve got a kiddo who can reach a light switch, or if you want to baby proof a danger area like the switch to the garbage disposal, here’s the tool for you – the Safety First Switch Lock Guard.

We got it, installed it, love it.

Maddie hates it.

Just wanted to pass it on to you . . .

Now that we’ve got a few months under our belts as a baby-proof (ish) house, I feel ready to pass on to you what items have worked and what haven’t. Keep in mind that she’s cruising – walking while holding on to furniture – but not solo walking, which means that we’ll need to do another round of tightening up, I’m sure, as she becomes more self-sufficient (read: devious and able to get into things on her own).

First, baby gates. We got the Safeway Walk-Through Gate for our top-of-stairs position.

Confession time: we have not yet installed it.

 A few years ago my girlfriend Abby and I got together at a friend’s house for some introspective girl time. Abby’s first son Isaiah was maybe a year old and she was enjoying a rare afternoon off from chasing an active boy. We were sitting on the floor of our friend’s apartment talking about weighty matters and fell into a comfortable, contemplative silence. I turned and looked at Abby, who was staring deeply at the floor.

“What are you thinking?” I asked, certain she was going somewhere great.

She blinked slowly. “I’m thinking,” she replied, “that there’s a penny on the floor and it’s a choking hazard.”

 Maddie’s ten months old now and has been crawling and cruising for almost two months.

And boy, am I tired.

We’ve been working on baby proofing the house for almost as long, but it’s a tedious process made even more time-consuming by my obsessive market research and maniacal need to know what Consumer Reports thinks about a product. By the way, register to be an online user with them; cheaper than the yearly magazine subscription and allows you to look up the best outlet plugs at 2 a.m. But I digress:

Over the past several weekends we’ve been working our way through the house, installing all the gear I ordered online to make the house a safer place for Supergirl. It’s by no means perfect yet; we still have the odd job to do here and there. But by and large, I can put baby girl down in any room of the house, at least long enough for me to get a glass of water, and she’s not in imminent danger.