Childproofing, Chapter 1

Well, the time has come. We have entered a new chapter in our parenting books. Addie is crawling now. In fact, it's pretty much a speed crawl these days. I remember a couple of weeks ago I was watching her saying "C'mon, already! You've been rocking for weeks!" And now, here we are...I feel like I have to keep an eye on her at all times!

Due to that, this weekend we did some pretty mild child proofing, although I'm sure we'll need to do more as time passes (hence the name "Chapter 1"). There is so much they suggest you do for child proofing. My mind spins when I walk down the childproofing aisle at Babies R Us. I feel like we can simplify this a bit. I think, for now anyway, we are angling towards the "teach-baby-consequences-from-the-start" method of childproofing. We are still, of course, taking care of all the real dangers. As time goes on, we will see if we need to be more thorough in our efforts to keep her out of harms way (and my books, and DVD's, and the cat's food...).

For now, I covered all of our plugs in the living room/dining room, put locks on the dangerous cabinets and drawers, and finally put up the baby gate. Right now, the gate basically just blocks off the rest of the apartment past the dining room, but eventually I know this will no longer do. I know Addie will want to explore past this area.

Other things we are planning to do in the near future are to get a cover for the fireplace and for the baseboard heaters to keep Addie from hurting herself, and we are also going to get some guards to cover the stereo and Playstation. We also need to lock up the medicine drawer in our bathroom and finish unpacking boxes soon so there aren't miscellaneous items scattered through the apartment.

Beyond that, we shall see! I know for sure we need to finish off the rest of the apartment at least to the level the living room is done in, but will we need to do more beyond that? We shall see!

Stay tuned for more!