I have a vivid imagination, so thinking about safety issues literally terrifies me. Luckily, Louisette’s enormous enthusiasm for standing up is something I find very exciting, and safety and Louisette growing up are now intertwined in my mind. So I’ve absolutely thrived on thinking about some of the bizarre and inventive ways my little girl is going to attempt to destroy herself, and how to foil her plans.
She recently got the idea of crawling, and just lacks the coordination and arm strength to pull it off:
My parenting class had a Kidsafe representative speak for us, and a couple of the things they recommended were very clever – treating bath and sink plugs as a hazard, and putting them on a high shelf or locked cupboard (most home fatalities are from drowning), and being very careful with anything containing beans (the inedible filling kind – they don’t show up on scans but do kill young children).
We’ve installed a safety gate (which is a trip hazard, unfortunately – I’ll keep an eye out for one that doesn’t have a bottom rail mummy has to step over), moved the cat food onto high shelves (yet another reason keeping cats is easier than keeping dogs), and taken some of our heaviest, pointiest, most top-heavy objects off the top of our tallest and ricketiest bookshelves. Including these gentlemen:
Yep, that’s a sword. A metal one.
In other news, I may yet end up with three different playgroups (one big one that meets in my church building; one medium one that evolves from the early parenting classes; one small invitation- and baby-only one that meets at my house), which is just fine by me.
Here are some photos that explain one reason playgroups are the biz:
