After we had our son about a year ago (our first), I knew we would eventually have to baby-proof, but I always thought of the usual suspects: outlets, cords, and baby gates on stairs. It didn’t truly hit me until he was mobile just how different the look and utility of my home would become.
We’ve been living in our current home for eight years. That’s eight long years of carefully selecting decorations and furniture, as well as curating shelves of frames, plants and knick-knacks. I love finding just the right thing for just the right spot, such as the antique-looking, turquoise-painted bench made like an Amish buggy bench that I bought at an auction. I paid more than I wanted to, but I could already picture it in that awkward space under the window, between the TV and the recliner. It had to come home with me. It has served as extra seating at parties and is a conversation starter. I never pictured it being something that would be so dangerous that it had to be moved out of reach. As soon as he could roll, my son bonked his head on the metal suspension underneath. He grabbed at the exposed, semi-rusty bolts and tried to eat them. I thought about covering those parts, but the whole thing was bouncy and could eventually fall over on him. I moved it to the top of the stairs and eventually down to the basement.
Obviously all plants had to be moved, and some, such as the poisonous English ivy and poinsettias, went away for good. I had a fair-trade magazine holder made from long twigs that someone halfway across the globe had meticulously woven together by hand. It must’ve taken a while to craft. Well, it only took ten seconds of me not watching before I heard a weird crunch. When I looked, I saw my son kicking the side of it with all his might, bits and pieces (otherwise known as choking hazards) flying all around, leaving the holder with a large hole in the side. Rest in pieces, little magazine holder.
Also along that wall, I had a fake plant that looked like tall grass in an urn. When he grabbed it, I realized the grass was brittle and would easily break into smaller choking hazards, so it had to go too. Now the only thing left on that wall was my black metal cookbook shelf. It suddenly became my son’s favorite thing to grab, crawl under, and pull books off of, so I had to move all the cookbooks to various other shelves and put the dangerous shelf in the garage.
I am running out of places to move things where he will likely never go. Even all of the small trashcans with plastic bags lining them that we had placed all around the house for convenience were now suffocation hazards filled with who-knows-what. The main kitchen trash can, with its once-convenient foot pedal, now has a lock on it that has to be squeezed on three sides to open. If my hands are messy while trying to throw something away, I have to wash my hands first or wash the lock afterwards.
Then there are the things that can’t really be moved, such as the TV stand with a glass front that he likes to bang with his hands. If he figures out how to push it hard enough to open it, he will be rewarded with all kinds of electronics with buttons and cords. I moved his portable play yard in front of it and later, had to put actual stick-on childproof locks on the doors.
Slowly everything on the coffee table and side tables had to go except one box of tissues that he couldn’t reach yet, but only if it was placed exactly in the middle next to the side of the couch. He eventually grabbed it and pulled out several tissues when I turned my back for a minute. A basket of remotes has to sit on the mantle. Eventually, even the tables themselves had to go, since he started to push up the glass tops. We replaced them with a soft storage ottoman.
I get it; I signed up to be a parent and baby-proofing and constant supervision are part of the deal. I just didn’t realize how bare and altered everything would look. Well, bare in a decorative sense. Many of the empty spaces have been filled with a colorful array of toys and books. My decorating “style” right now, and probably long into the future, is “a young child lives here” or “daycare-chic.” It will likely morph into “children of various ages live here” and then “teenagers live here.”
When I finally have my house back to the way I had it, with everything placed just so, I will look around and think, “Hey, this looks pretty good. Isn’t this nice?” But I will probably also sigh heavily and think something is just not right, that something is missing: the obnoxiously bright colors; the carelessly strewn toys, books, or sports equipment; the crumbs; the shoes and socks; the signs of children and living life (wait, scratch the shoes, socks and crumbs part…my husband should still be living with me, after all).
So I will say Goodbye to the “perfect” décor and Hello to the different, but safer, new style that comes along with parenting. I will recognize its short-lived necessity and try to enjoy every minute. And maybe I will never go back to pretty, but dangerous decorating, because after a few years, grandkids could be coming over. I’ve been forced into a form of minimalism and maybe I’ll get so used to it that I won’t go back to having quite so much around anyway.
How about you? What unexpected child-proofing did you have to do? Or what item(s) are you most looking forward to getting back once it’s safe again? Let me know in the comments.
