Baby gates can also be challenging to manage with a squirming child in your arms and another one wrapped around your leg. As genes would have it, I’m tall enough that I can step over many of them without opening them. This is fine when they’re at floor level, but a little trickier at the top of a staircase. (Don’t worry, I don’t attempt this trick with a little one in my arms.) I became very grateful for doors, locks, and baby gates, as I would likely have lost my sanity if I had been responsible for keeping two little ones out of trouble, from breaking anything valuable, and/or getting hurt themselves if they’d had free run of either of their houses. I joked that I spent a lot of time with guys that were behind bars. They were also very good at making sure the gates were secure. They’d go up and with both hands rattle them every once in a while to see if they could bust out.
One of the most alarming contraptions I came up against was a lock on a toilet seat. I didn’t know such things existed, and quickly discovered it was almost adult-proof. Fortunately just before I was about to resort to desperate measures, I figured out how to work the confounded mechanism.“My little guys” were incredibly adept at getting things out of locked cupboards without undoing the latch. Fortunately, they most often went for the cupboard with the Gladware plastic containers, sippy cups, and bowls, so it was a mess but certainly not a safety hazard. I take that back. The safety hazard was mine, as there were an inventoried amount of bottles, cups, bowls, and lids, and mama was liable to flip her lid if there were bottoms missing tops or vice versa.
This became such a regular habit that a few times I caught the boys’ sting operation on camera. Too funny!
