Death wish
Even before we found out we were having Elliott, Shelbi and I knew that our house was not particularly well baby-proofed. Check that. It is an absolute death trap. If a baby-proofing expert was to come into our home and analyze it, he or she would determine that, on average, an unsupervised mobile two-year-old would be seriously injured or killed within 7 minutes. Give or take. We currently have three enormous bookshelves in our living room, all of which shake slightly when planes fly directly over the house. And on those bookshelves are various objects, most of them pointy, including Shelbi's wedding bouquet that sits on the tallest shelf in the room near the edge and is housed in a large plastic case with extremely sharp corners.
In our family room is a small table complete with, not four, but eight corners and sharp woodworking between the legs of the table which has already been responsible for taking off at least five or six of my toenails over the years. Our medicine cabinet is an entrepreneurial teenager's wet dream. The list of child killers goes on and on.
Since having Elliott, we have known that a huge baby proofing undertaking would be necessary but we figured we had until he started crawling. At least nine months. Alas. As I mentioned above, the average time it would take a normal toddler to kill itself in our house is roughly 7 minutes. I have no doubt that Elliott, when he is walking, could get the job done in 90 seconds. From the moment we began giving him "tummy time" he instantly had a knack for finding all of the loose and previously invisible dog hair within a 10-foot radius of him, mashing it into a ball and then trying to cram it in his mouth before we could stop him. Now, as he is more aware and has slightly better motor skills, he is taking it up a notch. Observe.
We recently purchased a new computer and, as part of the packaging, there was a large plastic sheet over the monitor. In our excitement of setting up the new machine, we placed this sheet at the end of our guest bed. Last night, I placed Elliott at the front of the bed and watched him. Within a minute or two he had somehow gotten one foot in contact with the plastic and, once that happened, it took him 10 seconds to kick the object up into his hands where he then proceeded to smother himself with it. I was at once horrified and more than a little impressed.
This morning, Elliott was happily flailing away in his Exersaucer a few feet away from me as I was sending e-mails. Believe me when I say that I glanced down at him at least once every 15 seconds. One because he is the cutest baby in the world and two because he now likes to try and beat his previous day's record of how many times he can poke himself in the eye with his seal rattle while trying to eat it.
But on this day, and I still don't know how this was possible, he managed to get both hands around the cord of Shelbi's blow dryer. The cord was at least two feet away from him and he is not yet two-feet long. The only thing I can think is that he scooted the entire Exersaucer toward it because the inanimate black cord was far more interesting to him than the dozen shiny, twirling, flashing and singing objects just inches from his face. Again, before I could even process what was going on, he was devouring the cord, which was still plugged into the wall. Parenting!
Very funny but also rather terrifying! It confirms his brilliance, as if that was ever in doubt but also scares me! I will have to check out my house to. Love you all so.
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Oh my gosh!!!! that's not good.. i bet hes thinking that its funny.. ha ha
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