Avoiding Incidences: Childproofing Nightmares!

Posted by Vulnadia on Nov 17, 2010 at 11:36 PM It's ironic, really. Just earlier today, I was kidding around with a friend of mine when she scoffed about having to childproof her home for her 1yr old grandson. I had said something to the effect that childproofing is nothing but a way to make parents feel better about having at least tried to avoid the inevitable. I mean, sure we can avoid SOME things...but in my case & in my experience none of the childproofing products we purchased actually did the deed...yep, all they really did was serve as some sort of puzzle, some source of amusement for my children in their steps to naughtiness! Maybe that stuff is just to give us parents a heads up that our kids must be some geniuses to have mowed through these deterrents the way they do...or maybe it's to let us know that whoever designed these things really took us for a ride...because THEY DONT REALLY WORK!!! I mean, those staypuff marshmallow door-knob covers for example...most adults can't open a door with those things on the knob...but my kids...& I of all people know and are fully aware they are different (not just in a multipleness or triplet sort of way) but trully different... My kids just looked at those knob covers for a minute...scrutinizing them carefully much in the way a safecracker is portrayed in a good movie...and then Kai made his move...yep the singular version of the word...MOVE meaning one...he took his tiny little finger & poked at the darn thing...once...one poke...and that thing fell off of the doorknob into 2 pieces on the floor...one single poke is all it took to disable the device... Either my kid is some sort of mystical magical genius and going to be a rocket scientist or great quantum physicist when he grows up (yes I already anticipate the making of napalm in the sandbox hence the serious lack of Tide with bleach in my laundy room!) or whoever made that silly childproofing product was on some serious stuff when they thought it would keep a child from getting to the knob!!! Sure, my house is covered with childproofing products-knob covers on all the doorknobs, babygates and even cabinet deterrents...many different kinds of cabinet deterrents...all of which were immediately breeched upon installation rending them POINTLESS!!! NOTHING kept Kai from what he wanted to do...NO shelf too high, no lock too locked to be undone and breeched... So what's a parent to do? Why do they make this stuff if it doesnt really work? Is it truly to make me feel better when the kids DO get into things? I mean, it only takes a split second for a child to get into trouble and parents can't watch them ALL of the time...you have to blink sometimes and the child knows this too!!! So fast forward to tonight...we put the babies to bed in their nursery, safely latched in so they cannot leave the house (they have long since mastered the art of the dead bolt and even the windows must stay boarded up to keep them safe within their room.) I THOUGHT they were safe...after all, they are 4 now...well past the danger stage or so I had thought...then the screaming ensued...we went down the mental list-did we remove the duct tape used to keep the dvd player closed & the dvd safely inside? check...no breaking glass noises were heard so nobody breeched the windows...check...so what is it? We went upstairs, held our breath as we unlatched the nursery room door...and flung it open only to find that somehow, Kai's blanket found its way up on to the chandelier...and there it had stuck fast...it wasn't that they couldnt reach it, it was that it literally was stuck... Upon closer inspection, it actually was MELTED to the chandelier lightbulb...MELTED...no way to free it save to put a rather large hole in it from peeling it off of the light bulb... We had a very distraught Kai because his BLANKET...THE BLANKET had been defiled, desecrated...and it was holiest of holies in his 4yr old mind...and now it literally is holy...which made him cry even harder... I was just relieved that it hadn't caught fire or smoldered or anything worse...but still...I'm stuck thinking...could I have avoided this? Is there something I could have done to prevent it from happening? Short of removing the chandelier entirely, I don't think I could have....but who would have thought that a few minutes of touching that bulb could actually melt a hole into a blanket like that? We were able to fix the blanket and Kai was much relieved to have it back seemingly in one piece and no longer melted and charred...but could this have been avoided...I have to wonder... So is child proofing really the answer? We put things high up out of reach and the kids still find ways to access them...they move furniture...they stack cushions, stuffed animals...they find ways around all of the deterrents we set for them...they throw things...blankets...sometimes they land their blankets in chandeliers...other times you find your child swinging from the chandelier...and you raise it thinking it can no longer be reached...but still a way can be found it seems... mine STILL remove their mattresses & make slides out of them & they have big-kid beds!!!they also use vivienne's canopy bed as a jungle gym! i couldnt hide or put things up far enough-kai could even get on top of the fridge given the want/drive/need to do so-he was in the coffee pot, the oven, loved shiny silverware (relocated it almost daily to try & prevent his playing with it/in it-even hid it in the pantry on a shelf-he just tried stacking things to reach the shelves then climbed the rest of the way-he has scary strong upper body strength!) ~mimi