Overcoming Adversity

Originally published March 2, 2006

Aside from his food predilection and toilet issues, my little guy is an avid climber. He can scale anything and if he can't, he is smart enough to figure out a way to get around that little inconvenience. He is a stealthy child, too, and can move a dining-room table chair to the counter or a stereo to gain access to his heart's desire without making a sound. Fast. Mostly, he is sneaking sweets or gum ("muh" as he calls it), but often enough he is shoving as many CDs as he can find into our 3-disc player and trying to force the drawer shut (the record held is 11 CDs with the drawer completely shut).

Because of this predilection, we find ourselves childproofing our house *more* as he gets older, rather than less as you would expect (or at least *I* would expect) at this age. We purchased, for the first time in our parenting careers, door knob lock thingies. He finally figured out how to open the doors a couple of months ago and began inviting our dogs into the house for unsupervised refrigerator parties. You'd be amazed at how quickly two 100 pound dogs can empty the bottom shelf of a refrigerator when given the chance (hence, the need for previously mentioned fridge locks).

One of our current challenges is keeping him off of the countertops. When he first began his exceptional climbing career, we had no child-proofing on the upper cabinets. I literally walked into the kitchen one afternoon to find my not-quite-two-year old standing naked (have you noticed this particular characteristic?) on the countertop, surrounded by a random assortment of wine glasses and coffee mugs, and wielding two very large butcher knives. The sense of accomplishment he felt that day must have been intoxicating because he has since become unstoppable. Needless to say, this new development required a mass re-organization and serious childproofing of the upper kitchen level.

Since all of the drawer stacks in our kitchen are roped together to prevent drawer vaulting, and we have all but bolted down chairs from around the house, to minimize access as much as possible, it was only a matter of time before he found an alternate scaling option. His current route to Nirvana is by way of our oven door. Think "springboard." Down goes the oven door, up goes child and voila - he has gained access to the entire upper kitchen area. I actually believe that he cases the kitchen, looking for open locks, watching for that time we slip and and then BAM! He slips in and wreaks havoc. We have tried the child-locks they make for oven doors. However, I don't think those were designed with the average 3.5 year old in mind. Stick on clips are just not much of a deterrent for an analytical child with excellent fine motor skills and an uncanny ability with tools (he must be the only 3.5 year old child with his own 18-volt cordless drill... which I admit, in hindsight, probably wasn't a particularly brilliant idea). Obviously, this oven issue is causing me a bit of angst.

Two weeks ago I walked into the kitchen to find dear, dear Dennis planted firmly in the center of the stove-top, oven door open and an amazing amount of heat emanating from said opening. He had apparently decided that playing with the buttons on the back of the stove would be an interesting thing to do and had managed to not only turn on the oven, but two of the four burners as well. He did manage to sit strategically on the stovetop so as to escape what surely could have been a horrible burn. But like I've said before, I'm a silver-lining kind of gal. At least he hasn't figured out that he can put things on the stove and catch them on fire. It *could* be worse...

I really want to know if there is truly something fundamentally *wrong* with duct-taping a child? Because in my heart of hearts, it seems like a good idea. Surely a case can be made that it is for his own safety... I would do it with only the greatest loving kindness, I swear.