The forgotten art of 'baby-proofing'

It's been an awfully long time since I've had to truly baby-proof my house and I've realised just how much I've 'forgotten' the in's and out's of this artform.

New Mum Chick is dropping off our littlest chickadee tomorrow afternoon and she's spending the night with us.  We're all looking forward to the event, but it's the first time she's sleeping over since she learnt how to crawl. Fast!  And she pulls herself up on absolutely everything before coasting around to the next piece of furniture so I have to make sure that there's nothing she can overbalance on.  We've seen her stand bolt upright on her own too before realising what she's doing and sitting down as fast as possible. This kids in a hurry!

I've spent the day washing off furniture that might resemble something delectably irrestable to gnaw on and I'm in the process of vacuuming the house (truly... just stopped by the computer to check my emails and thought I should really create a post...)and I'll steam the tiles downstairs early tomorrow morning...

We don't have gates on our stairs, but I do have very large couches that I can place in front of the stairs so we'll tick those boxes.  Might have to put another large couch in front of the entertainment centre too!  We don't want her climbing on top of that and it's at such a great height for climbing too! 

I have plenty of ribbon to tie my kitchen cupboards shut, but that can wait until tomorrow morning.  Fortunately my cupboards have the sort of handles that lend themselves to being tied shut.  So tick that box too.

Ornaments don't really pose a big problem as I don't have many standing about.  Those I do have will get popped into the cupboards before she arrives.

So, I think we're safe.  Little Miss C has learnt the meaning of the word 'no' too!  Which definitely helps and it amuses us all to watch her shaking her little head as she mimics us by repeating 'no, no' while smiling sweetly back at us.  She actually leaves off 'touching' or 'doing' when we ask her to now.  At least for a while.  Hey, we may have changed our minds and it might be perfectly allowable a few minutes later.  One never knows until one tries.  Does one?

Needless to say, she keeps us all highly amused by her antics and her grandfather and I are looking really forward to the privilege of the impending 'sleep-over'. 

April Blackbird