Earlier today, sister-in-law Molly emailed me a link to this site, and Libby requested that I contribute a follow-up of my own. So, now I am venturing into the realm of requests (which is just as well, really, because not enough has been going on around our house to keep me with material these past few weeks).
As the website said, this list is incomplete. By a LONG shot. Perhaps this blogger has a child who isn't as "hands on" as Gabe (Button might end up being this type of child, we're finding, thanks to Gabe, that she isn't really the "grab everything within reach and put it directly into her mouth" kind of girl, but that might change), but we found out time and again, the hard way, that things we don't want destroyed need to be way up high or locked away behind baby gates. Here are just a few of the items Gabe has mauled, or tried to maul, over the past two and a half years.
CDs, DVDs: We installed an entire column of 10 shelves in my office when we put the built-in shelves in here that were specifically designed with DVD sized items in mind. I only have enough DVDs to fill three of these shelves, and the two shelves under that are stuffed to capacity with CDs. The rest are filled with trade paperback and smaller sized books. The problem is, these shelves are right next to the baby gate between the office and the dining room, and Gabe has long been able to reach in and grab whatever he wants to from two or three of the shelves. Early on we discovered Gabe's love of the CD--they ARE shiny, I guess, so I guess I can't blame him. Many a CD was munged up thanks to him chewing on them, and we still have issues with him pulling down the DVD cases, taking the disks out, then carrying them around or dropping them on the floor until I play the movie he'll watch five minutes of before getting bored.
Books, Magazines, Anything Made of Paper: Thanks to a LITTLE bit of advanced planning, the bookshelves in my office don't start until about 18 inches up from the floor--there are cabinets in this space. We figured this was a good height because, based on what we thought we knew about children, we figured that, by the time one could walk (and, thus, could reach the bottom shelf), the child would know better than to pull books off the shelf for no good reason. HA! Gabe would to this day, if he could. Fortunately, I have these shelves packed so full of books that I have problems getting them out, but we've certainly had our share of paper-based casualties over the years. Libby especially is bad about leaving her knitting magazines and books in the living room where Gabe inevitably found them. Sometimes he'll tear pages, sometimes he would eat them, often he would color all over them. He is multi-faceted in his destructive ways.
Anything with Liquid in It That Isn't Contained by a Spill-Proof Lid: Cups, glasses, flower vases, uncapped lava lamps, you name it. If Gabe could reach it, he would spill it on the floor, usually via his face and the front of his shirt. And whether it was hot or cold didn't matter. It's only been in the last six months that I've grown comfortable leaving a cup of coffee on one of the less noticeable resting places in the living room--and I still don't leave glasses filled with cold drinks in there because he STILL wants to drink out of them (only now he has about a 75% chance of doing it without catastrophic results). We've had entire cans of soda, glasses of water, a cup of tepid coffee, and several other types of drinks that I can still mentally visualize the clean-up process for spilled on the carpet in our living room. And that's not counting the cups/bottles that were for him that managed to get spilled. I swear, when we get this carpet cleaned (which I've resisted since it seems an awful lot like throwing money down the toilet since it will just be a mess again within a month), the finished product (the nasty water they end up with) will end up being 50% previously dehydrated drinks.
Things That Write: This one didn't take us long to catch on to, but it is difficult to stay vigilant on. I tend to do a fair amount of list making and note leaving, which means that I leave pens willy nilly all over the house. He's gotten better about it, but I'm still not sure I'd trust Gabe with a mug full of pens. What he's gotten better about is "acceptable marking surfaces." This used to be "anything he could see" but has sense changed slightly to "anything Dad can't see him marking on." I still find crayoned and markered spots on the table and chairs--he used to write on the walls but he's thankfully gotten away from that, possibly because I nearly lost my mind when I caught him doing it. This is especially good since he's now the proud owner of a box of 96 crayons which AREN'T the washable kind (which is what he's used exclusively up to this point). God help our furniture.
Things that "Work" and Things That Aren't Already Lost: Yeah, I know this is a vague category, but, really, I could go on with this for DAYS. I could talk about any and all food containers--or the kitchen in general--or pieces of clothing or shoes or anything, really. If it can be broken, lost, or made to malfunction, Gabe can find a way to do it. He will smash it, stick it in his mouth, drop it somewhere nobody will ever think to look, or otherwise destroy it. Really, the problem with this list is that it SHOULD read: Things That ARE Toys, because everything else is likely going to become only so much detritus in the hands of a curious child. And even then, Gabe can manage to cause biblical destruction even with just his own toys. Often, just to preserve them for longer than a twenty-four hour period after he's received them, I will hide his toys somewhere so he doesn't snap them in two in the hopes that when he finds it next the kind of playing he'll have in mind for it won't involve tearing it apart or smashing it against something hard.
There. My bit of public service. If you don't have kids--or your kid is still just in the crawling phase and you're trying to learn what needs to be "baby proofed"--I will finish with this observation: children under the age of three should be placed in a padded cell with nothing but a few puffy colorful blocks around them because, otherwise, they're going to bust shit up. ALL of it. Trust me on this one.
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