As soon as Jack was even thinking about being mobile, Steve and I babyproofed the utter hell out of our house. Every stairway had a gate on it. Every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen was locked. Plug-ins had covers on them, and I bought a cover to keep him from turning off the computer. We even had locks on the toilets to keep him from chucking stuff into them.
When we left our house in Virginia and moved into Stately Wasser Manor, he was two years old and a lot more steady on his feet. We got rid of the gates on the stairs, the locks on the drawers and cabinets, and the plug covers.
But we did keep all of our cleaning products way up high in the pantry. If I needed to run the dishwasher (which it seems like I do every day, rolling that rock up the hill), I have to walk to the pantry to get it, then put it back away again.
This morning, it occurred to me that was unnecessary. I moved all of the kitchen cleaning products to under the sink, where nature intended them to be. This time, my childproofing consisted of a single conversation.
Me: Hey, Jack! See this stuff here?
Jack: Yes.
Me: Leave it alone.
Jack: Of course.
I have felt this many times over the past four and a half years, but Jack really seems to be at an ideal age. He's little and cute and charming, but he can also be quite reasonable.
3 comments:
That's awesome! I don't look forward to the childproofing, but thankfully, we don't have stairs, so that's one less thing to worry about.
Isn't awesome when you can say things like that to them and you know they'll listen. :)
(Four year olds are a lot of fun. I actually miss that stage.)
That's great that he would listen!
Mine would take it as an invitation to investigate.
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