Thursday, March 5, 2009

This Daredevil Child

It's one thing to baby-proof. It's another thing to toddler-proof. And for some toddlers, there is no such concept.
I must now assume that if anything is next to a taller thing, Kittyboy can reach whatever is on the taller thing, and may in fact be able to conquer the taller thing himself. He's been bringing us little things of which we would say, "OH! I thought I had put this beyond your reach! Must not have, la di da..." and we would put it up somewhere high again. This happened repeatedly...
Then one day, last week I think, I witnessed him climb onto the seat of my "kneeling chair", which is on wheels, climb from there over the arm of a dining room chair, and from there onto the dining room table.
Okay, so nothing on the table is safe. Note taken.
Then this week, he brought me something from the top of his bookcase - the corner away from his bed, which he shouldn't be able to reach. He was given all these porcelain or ceramic little pastel things when he was born, and they've all been on his book case, a little over three feet off the ground, and pushed to the far corner where he can't get them. Unless, of course, he tips the toybox over juuuust far enough, then balances on the slanted inner side against the bookcase - then he can reach all manner of breakable lovelies. He did this with deliberate intent - I know because when he brought me the Precious Moments bell, I said, "Oh - how pretty! Can you put it back where you got it from?" and he proceeded to do so as I watched and held my breath.
Okay, so we moved everything from the bookcase.
Then, this afternoon, he topped it all. I heard this long, involved, complicated crashing, ran into his room, and got there just in time to watch my one-and-only precious boy fall from an unknown height onto his rocking caterpillar, then backwards off of it to the floor, with his chewing toothbrush in his mouth. Oblivious to his dramatic defiance of death, he rolled over and picked up a Pooh videotape case and sat opening and closing it. Totally unfazed. Didn't care. Triumphant even - he had gotten what he wanted.
The long, involved and complicated crashing was the avalanche of STUFF from the top of his dresser. Dresser comes up to my shoulder, by the by. A lamp, two videotapes, an assortment of bottles, baby powders and whatnot, and a porcelain music box we had moved from the bookcase (how ironic). Working backwards, I deduced that he had pulled the middle drawer out a couple inches (I remembered hearing him tugging, I'd thought he was stashing a toy), climbed onto the back of his rocking caterpillar, stood on that, grabbed a drawer handle and stepped up onto the edge of the pulled out drawer, and after grabbing at something on the top of the dresser, lost his grip, balance or both, and caused an avalanche as he did whatever he did to slow his fall (considering I heard the crashing and then saw the fall). Down from drawer's edge to caterpillar, caterpillar is a soft, rounded surface, so backwards then onto his back.
WITH THE BLANKETY-BLANK TOOTHBRUSH IN HIS MOUTH THE WHOLE BLANKETY-BLANKING TIME!!!!!
Tomorrow, chewies with handles go up. He's got plastic tube chewies I can tie into loops with handles, so he can stick something in his mouth cigar-style that won't have disastrous consequences if he falls. And anything next to anything taller will be moved, so that he'll at least need to make noise moving it - no matter HOW improbable it looks as a stepstool.
Kid won't look where his feet are going when he's walking down stairs - but I have to move a rocking caterpillar because he has no problem using it as the base of a ladder. Un-be-lievable.

1 comment:

faerieeva said...

You have to forgive me for laughing, but that sounds so much like my little 'knows no fear' Joseph, it felt good to hear from another mom who knows that every noise can be disaster, but that silence probably is the scariest thing!