How Do You Define Child Proof

I am a big fan of HGTV – I love the shows where a designer comes in and takes an ordinary space and uses amazing materials to create something fabulous.  The shows where the after photos look nothing like the before images.  It’s the type of TV that I like to watch before bed – mindless but amusing.  One night last week I watched an episode with Scott.  The clients were a young couple with a toddler and a baby on the way and the project was to redesign the living and dining rooms – main objective was to be child friendly.

The final design – beautiful!  The dining room had a bench at the table as well and modern high chairs – overall a great fit.  The living room had a fireplace that they could not retrofit so instead it was filled with pillar candles – safe they said since a free standing tempered glass barrier was placed in front of it.  I don’t care how weighted it was – no match to a determined toddler.  They made a point of noting that the everything fragile was on high shelves.  This was true.  However, there was a chair adjacent to one set of shelves and a couch and end table next to the other set.  Any toddler could reach the highest shelf from the chair.  Within the 3 mintues that they showed the completed rooms, I spotted at least 10 potential issues.

And then there was the toy storage – open baskets on the easily accessible lower shelves.  I don’t know about you, but my toddlers have a favorite game called dump all of the toys out of the bucket (universal term for all open stroage).  We bought a great storage unit from IKEA with different sized containers that slide out for toy storage.  Each day they would rush over and remove each bucket and dump the contents.  Then they would flip them over and use the buckets as steps to climb on top of the storage unit.  After a few weeks of picking up all of the toys every day, we put the buckets away.

I am trying some new bins for the toys they play with most.  When the boys woke up, there were no toys on the coffee table or the floor.  They immediately dumped out the bin with the most toys on the table.  After playing with them for a few mintes, Wyatt swept all of the toys from the table to the floor where they scattered across the room.  They were downstairs for a total of 20 minutes before we left the house including the time to get each of them dressed.  It takes so little time… 

I wonder if I can rent the boys out to test people’s homes.  If you want to find every potential child hazard in your home, these are your boys.  It’s a good thing they are so cute!