To Babyproof or Not to Babyproof...

That is the question- or was the question. I thought I had it all worked out in my mind that I would not baby proof my house. Matt and I were very big on the baby will not change the way we go about our lives idea and we continue to stand by that. The way we live our lives is similar to how we did pre-Emma. If we were to put up gates and locks and plug up every electrical outlet around our house it would mean that a) we were anal parents, b)we had no parental ability to control our kid or c) our child would surely wreak havoc if ever in an unbabyproofed home. Um, and before you throw darts at me, no, we don’t put parents that do babyproof into any of these categories. I promise.

For the first fifteen and a half months of Emma’s life it worked really well. She didn’t throw our breakables on the floor, and she was great about staying away from the stairs (except when her friends are around- peer pressure already). We had it all figured out.

Except...

I didn't realize that maybe there would be a choice “D” to add to our list of reasons people babyproof. Simply put, our child is a Wild Thing. When we were thinking through babyproofing we did not factor a wiiiild chiiiiild into the equation. My sweet little girl already marches to the beat of her own drummer. I swear she has a future spot on the U.S. gymnastics team. She flips, (yes, she did her first somersault the other day) she twists, she tumbles, she climbs. I mean, with unnatural abilities. Last month she started climbing out of her crib. I found the crib tent or toddler bed options unsuitable for my spidermonkey, but thought I’d give her Pack ‘n Play a try. She couldn’t jump out of that could she? It almost lasted two weeks. On the third night of escaping she ended up with a big enough bruise on her face for me to cave in and just put her in a toddler bed. Except our toddler bed didn’t come with rails and finding bed rails for anything smaller than a twin bed was almost impossible. So, my dear is now sleeping on a mattress on her bedroom floor...in a babyproofed room.

Oh how I babyproofed.

So much so that her room is almost as empty as a Madoff investor's bank account.

My nursing chair and ottoman are gone, her rocking chair is gone, her shelf is out of there. Every outlet that could be plugged is plugged. There's drawer locks and door locks and safety galore.

The carefree image I tried so hard to project has been shattered. Blast.