I had to laugh with myself the other day as I installed locks on my refrigerator and pantry and some of the drawers in my kitchen. Some time back, there was a post about just this subject - someone posted that there are stingy city folk who lock up their food so the kids and guests cant take it…
Well, I’m not a city folk and I dont think I’m stingy. But my 2 yr old thinks the refrigerator is the most fascinating place to climb and explore to see what kind of goodies he can find. The last straw was when he got the tabasco sauce and had the lid off, all ready to take a nice swig. If I go the bathroom, I have to take him with me because inevitably, he’s in the refrigerator if I turn my back for 2 seconds. If he ever got in there and the door closed on him it could be dangerous. No oxygen after a while. (Although its the first place I’d look but still…) He’ll eat only goodies if he can get to them hence the lock on the pantry with the chips and cookies. These things are treats that he can have on occasion when he finishes the food that is good for him. And the drawers that have knives, well we dont even need to discuss that. Lock em up and thats it. I serve my guests well and also tell them to make themselves at home, etc so I dont know if they think I’m a stingy thing if they see the locks but what the heck. They’re necessary when you have little ones that you want to teach proper nutrition to! So the locks arent necessarily a reflection of stinginess, there may be other reasons - good ones! for locking up the kitchen!
that sounds exactly like my baby brother, he was unbelievably naughty, ever since he learnt how to roll over - he’d often try rolling off of the most hazardous places
deffinitely a good idea, why dont you put a lock on the kitchen door?? we had to do that as well
Mamaof3 - I totally see your point. Junior is also at that stage where he finds everything fascinating, especially the workings of the fridge door. I can't take him to the bathroom with me either because for him, the place is an Aladins Cave........his latest trick is to thrown things down the toilet. I may have to get one of those lock/catches for the toilet seat soon.
Seeing that with kids make me despair that I have become so cynical, I've never paid attention to the fridge door, never really understood how swinging on it can be fun (my first thought is for the fridge and not for the fun), never really noticed the flushing of the toilet, although yeah, it is kinda cool. That's sad, but I dont know how kids would turn out if you didn't put those barriers between them and the fridge / toilet, but hmm maybe they wouldn't grow up to be cynical, or maybe doing that is right because then it keeps the fridge and toilet a mystery, until you grow bored of being denied free access to it that is.
neva mind my rambling but i just wanted to say instead of thinking it as cute and saying aww, maybe we should think of it through the eyes of a kid experiencing the world for the first time and finding everything fascinating. now we need bigger things to be happy, like a car or whatever, but maybe we should learn from little kids and be happy with the little things too.
Innocence lost :(
but err definitely draw the line at things that may hurt the child.
Thx for the amusing replies! Lol!! My boys just love to play splashy in the toilet too! Fun fun fun! I keep the door closed to the bath unless I'm in there - they cant open it yet! So after I found my electronic car keys at the bottom of the bowl, I started keeping the door shut! The way our house is laid out, I cant keep them out of the kitchen unless I corral them into our den which I do at times but usually we're in the part of the house where they can get to the kitchen. We also had to block off the garbage pail! They have fun throwing things in there too! We lost 2 remotes for the TV and they love to take cans of kitty food and throw them in there. I kept wondering why we were going thru so much kitty food till I found 10 cans in the garbage! I could go on and on, its just amazing (and amusing!) the things that little ones can get into and have fun with!
