Making Adjustments

The first few days in the house were weekdays and the boys were both sticking close to an adult while they were getting used to the new surroundings. By the weekend they were used to the layout and back to running wild. In the old house we only needed to gate 2 places to keep the boys away from stairs and the kitchen; the layout of the main floor of the new house is complicated. We thought that maybe the boys were old enough that we wouldn’t need as many gates. By 9:30 am on Saturday I knew that we needed to make some changes…fast.

The biggest problem was the stairs. They kept running upstairs and closing all of the bedroom doors and then I would have to go in each room to try and find them and by the time I found one the other one would be gone again, off looking for trouble. Saturday night I bought a basic pressure-mounted gate for the bottom of the stairs that can easily be removed while the boys are sleeping or not at home. As soon as Wyatt finished his breakfast Sunday morning he went running to the stairs and burst into tears – mommy had ruined his plans.

We have a pantry on both sides of the fridge and the boys think it is a great place to play. They will happily remove items and pile them on the floor, rearrange things, and hide canned goods in various places around the house. Ruslan likes to pick up the cans and pretend to drink out of them.

Wyatt has a sudden love of ketchup – it is one of the clearest words he says. Things that he has dipped in ketchup in the past few days include: chicken nuggets, french fries, grapes, pop tarts, his fingers (maybe he will eat veggies if he has ketchup). He likes to get the extra ketchup out of the pantry and bring it to me. After dinner on Monday (the meal that involved him licking ketchup off his fingers) he tried to open the pantry door but was prevented by the newly installed tot lok. He pulled and pulled and called “Help, Help, Help Mommy”. Needless to say he was very disappointed.

Next to the pantry is a shelving unit with my cookbooks. Wyatt is very interested in “Mommy’s books”. In fact Saturday night when I told him to pick out a book to read, he selected the Betty Crocker Cooky Book. I have been helping my mom make recipes from that cookbook since I was a little girl {aside – I bought my copy of the cookbook on one of my first dates with Scott. We had dinner at the Fish Market and then wandered around the waterfront stores for a while. One of our stops was Barnes & Noble and I was so excited to have my own copy of the book}. Wyatt happily sat on my mom’s lap while she paged through the book reading the names of some of the cookies.

Saturday was a long day (I won’t even talk about the number of times the boys played in toilets) but Sunday was better. New routines and adjustments to make the house safer and keep me from going crazy.