Friday Jul 29, 2011

0
Dahlia is trouble.
We've known this from the start. In the first year of her life she had the cops at our house twice.
She's climbed everything as soon as she could figure it out.






She also is a great problem solver. She still gets up for a bottle once in the middle of the night. One night she got up and fussed and decided to solve her own problem. She got up, opened her bedroom door, walked across the house and knocked on our door. This prompted us to put a latch on their door. I'm not entirely comfortable with that solution, but given that she's fascinated by the utensil drawer I'm so terrified that she'll get up one night and play with knives, I'll suck up on insecurities on that one. (Meanwhile T seems to think there's an invisible barrier at the threshold to their room, she will not leave it without explicit permission from her parents.)

Today however she's reach a new... phase.

In the kitchen is the door to the basement. We've cut a hole in that door so that the cats can go to the basement no problem. Today Dahlia discovered she can fit through that hole. Conveniently she tried it while I was standing RIGHT THERE fixing lunch. So she didn't tumble down the stairs. (there's even a broken stair so it's not like she can just walk down the stairs and be safe.)

Those of you who've been to our house will understand my concern here. For those who haven't I've described the house in spoilers.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)
We have a long, narrow house. If you slice the house down the middle lengthwise and walk from the front door to the back of the house on one side you have the living room, dining room and kitchen. On the other side is the master bedroom, playroom, bathroom, girls' room.
We have a baby gate up between the kitchen and the dining room. This effectively divides the house into girl's room, bathroom, kitchen on one side of the gate and everything else on the other. So if the gate is closed and the girls get up in the middle of the night they only have access to the kitchen and bathroom. We do try to remember to keep the gate open though.



So basically I'm scare we'll forget to latch her door one night and she'll fall down the stairs to the basement and we won't know until morning.

VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
lixor17:
We had to move my mother-in-law in because she has Alzheimers. Some months after she arrived, she went through a "walk-about" phase, slipping outside and walking in a random direction until she was eventually found. Or trying to at least. Unlike with a growing child, she couldn't be scolded, because she had lost the ability to understand why this was a problem. At the time she was still able to figure out how to work the double lock, and it would sometimes be the middle of the night when she decided it was time for a stretch. She wouldn't put on a coat when she did these walks. Fall was starting, winter can be literally be killing here for those who are not dressed properly. It hurt me badly, and still gives me the jebbers about the fire safety aspect, but fire is a low risk and her wandering was a high risk... so we installed chain locks on the doors. Chain locks that you need a key to open, even from the inside. That handled it for us. These days we can leave the key in plain sight near the lock and she cannot put the idea together... but still it hurts to lock her in.
wsoxfan:
I understand your concerns, especially when dealing with a precocious and bright toddler.

It was enough work baby-proofing an apartment when my girls were little so I can imagine the huge task of doing it in an entire house.

More Blogs