Jim's Brain Online

One of those things that no one bothers to tell you about having children (particulary toddlers) is that they don't stop moving when you stop looking at them. One reason they don't mention it is that it is blindingly obvious. Another is that you don't really understand the implications until your children can run free in the house.

Or to put it another way, you don't really understand the implications until you've left a child unwatched for a moment.

This is something, I might add, that you seldom do with infants. Infants can drown in remarkably small amounts of water, so you can't leave them alone in the bath. Similarly, stairs can be death traps for crawling or just walking children. As such, Kristen and I never let the kids out of our sight when they were younger. We put up gates to prevent them from falling down either of our staircases and never walked away from the bathtub.

Now however, Abby and Rebecca have hit a point where they can almost be trusted. We can reasonably expect them to go up stairs without tripping and rolling down. We've taken down the gates, much to my relief (three pairs of pants ripped in the worst of all possible spots due to wear from stepping over them...).

Here are the results of freedom of motion:

--Rebecca and Abby can now "feed the cats," filling the cats' bowls to a point that they overflow to a distance of 6 inches on either side of the bowl.

--With some work, Abby can now climb to the top shelf of the basement closet, pulling out the chalk, crayons, and "Blue's Clues" paper that I'd attempted to store out of their reach.

--Related to the above, it turns out that chalk is surprisingly easy to remove from the basement walls even if your kids managed to scribble practically from the floor to the ceiling.

--Also related to the above, it turns out that crayon will come off a television screen if you apply a hot, moist rag (you may want to turn off the tv beforehand).

Finally, it is also worth mentioning that once toddlers can get out of cribs, you might just want to consider buying a bed. It will be less messy. When a baby has a dirty diaper, it has to wait for you to do something about it. When a toddler has a dirty diaper, she can take the diaper off, climb out of the crib and inform you of the problem. If she continues to hold the diaper, she can splatter the bed, her sheets, the carpet, and the wall (to a height of three feet) with utter nastiness.

Not that the last event ever happened to me. If anyone, Kristen should probably be telling that story, but I think she's still too traumatized.