Baby-Proofing

The baby is officially a toddler. Tear. 

 

After a long search, I finally found a baby gate that will work at the bottom of the stairs.  And I installed it.  (yeah me!) Of course I installed it a few weeks after she started walking but she never noticed or cared about the stairs until we installed it

 

Matt installed cabinet and drawer locks in all the kitchen cabinets.  This was done when she started to crawl.  Way to not wait to the last minute!!

I have outlet covers for half of the outlets.  With different size outlets (this is really a big pain in the bum!), I can only have 50% success rate here!!

Outside doors.  This will be a fun adventure.  She will not be able to open the front door by herself for a while because it’s a heavy metal door.  But if the door is open, she can close it and lock you out.  And the back door only has a door knob on the inside.  So if you go outside, you must be prepared for the little one to follow you out (she is still too scared to step off the first step, thank goodness for small blessings.)  She really likes to open and close this door for Lucy.

Marble fireplace edges are covered with foam protective stuff.  She unfortunately thinks she should try to remove this for us.

Why I am giving you my little safety check list?  Because we have reached the point in the toddler stage that we must trust in the baby-proofing.  Of course things like shelves and tables will constantly have to be adjusted and monitored since she keeps getting taller.  She is at the point where she is constantly moving and exploring and learning new things. She still hasn’t learned how to climb on things other than the first stair (again, thank goodness for small blessings) but she is trying and it will be soon.

 

And she has learned to open food packages with her teeth.  Yep.  Halloween candy was so much fun to play with.  Put it in the pumpkin.  Take it out of the pumpkin.  Shake it.  Put it in the pumpkin.  Several days of play until she put one in her mouth and took a bite through the wrapper and tasted the magnificent chocolately goodness of the Hershey’s bar! 

Since then she has opened a package of graham crackers (tear holes in the package is probably more accurate but she gets a taste!), granola bar, and most recently-hot chocolate. 

I was cooking dinner and she was playing in her cabinet, loading and unloading groceries.  The hot chocolate packets were lots of fun to take out of the box and stack in her hands.  They were easy to carry around the house and put in random places like the bidet.  They were easy to cram back in her cabinet!  A perfect play thing for several days.  Yesterday, she was playing with her hot chocolate and wandering around the kitchen.   I had my back turned for a minute and noticed that both the dog and baby seemed to be still and quiet.  I turned around to find the baby and the dog frantically licking up the powdered chocolate!!  NO more plastic or paper packages for the baby!