Jacob is finally almost crawling!
I know that sounds like a dubious milestone to parents whose children are already crawling because everyone we talk to is like, “NO! Savor this time before they’re mobile! Crawling ruins lives!” And while I know that we’re going to face a whole new host of challenges once he’s actually crawling (especially because the dogs track disgusting yard debris everywhere that Jacob will be crawling), I cannot wait to start this next stage.
Partially because we’re on the late end of the milestone, which is normal with a big baby, and chubadub over here counts as a big baby, coming in in the 87th percentile for weight. (He’s tall too. I shouldn’t call him chubadub.) But mostly I’m so excited because we’ve felt so behind in milestones with the torticollis, so finally getting there and (just barely) within the average time frame feels like a huge victory.
Of course, it will also come with its challenges. Namely, figuring out how to babyproof my house.
Houses tend to fall into one of three categories when it comes to stairs: ranch (no stairs), colonial (one staircase), or split-level (two half staircases).
Obviously, a ranch-style house is ideal for babyproofing, because it requires zero baby gates, but you also run the risk of your child not knowing how to go up and down stairs when he or she starts school. (My husband grew up in a ranch-style house. He still seems to have difficulty navigating stairs, especially when his mouth is full. I grew up in a colonial-style house, so I can walk up and down stairs backwards, forwards, and Exorcist-style, all while eating spaghetti.) A colonial is the next best because it requires only two baby gates, and baby will eventually learn to walk down stairs. A split level is less than ideal because you’ll need four baby gates, which does tend to get annoying and expensive.
Then there’s our house.
I get that the ’70s, when it was built, were a feel good, groovy time. Yes, there was disco, but the ’70s gave us Born to Run and Star Wars. What’s not to love about the ’70s?
Our house. That’s what.
Don’t get me wrong, I love our house. It definitely needed updating, much of which we’ve done and are still doing. We replaced the rickety wrought-iron banisters. We painted over the hideous brown brick wall. We put in recessed lighting and are even in the process of finishing our super scary basement. (Seriously, it’s the basement from the first season of American Horror Story right now. Don’t go down there.) Our house is lovely. And until we got close to Jacob crawling, we had no problems at all, other than the haunted basement.
So what’s the problem now?
It’s a colonial. We should be able to get two baby gates and call it a day. But apparently I live in the house that MC Escher built and I basically need baby gates on the ceiling.
Here’s the issue: we have a sunken living room and family room (they’re connected), each with its own staircase consisting of four steps each. Not terrible, but considering my grandma almost wiped out on them the other day after 90 years of successful stair walking, I think it’s safe to say that we need to gate those off for the baby. So that’s four baby gates. We have a normal staircase too, so that’s two more gates. And then, because the first two bedrooms are over the sunken rooms and the other bedrooms are over the non-sunken kitchen and dining room, we have ANOTHER set of four steps upstairs. Which means to babyproof our house, we’re going to need EIGHT baby gates.
As daunting as that is, it gets worse. Three of those landings are opposite banisters, so we can’t use pressure mounted gates there, and one of the sets of four stairs is open and doesn’t have a wall at all, so we need to find a baby gate that wraps around to connect to other walls (because I don’t trust a freestanding baby gate. I feel like he’s going to pull up to stand on that and it’s going to smush him like a bug. The cutest little smushed bug in the world. But still a smushed bug).
And then there are the dogs.
The dogs are also my babies. Don’t @ me. They just are. (Have I been spending too much time with my students? For the slang-challenged out there, or anyone who doesn’t have a teenager, that means don’t call me out about that because I stand by what I said. I think the etymology is from the Twitter.)
The strict dog trainers out there are cringing, but our dogs have free reign of the house. They never liked being crated as puppies, so despite not being perfectly behaved, we let them roam free.
But, if you needed proof that the dogs are my babies, both of them seem to have inherited my anxiety. Rosie has pretty bad separation anxiety. She does NOT handle being away from me well at all. She manages for the school day and all, but shutting her in a room completely freaks her out. We’re pretty sure she’s going to claw through our bedroom door one of these days when we’re getting work done in the house and have to shut her in there for her own safety.
Sandy has social anxiety (she is my spirit animal) and new people freak her out. She’s on meds for it and is much better these days (except when she sees my brother. She freaking hates my brother. We have no idea why, as every other dog, cat, horse, llama, bald eagle and iguana on the planet loves him. He’s like the male Snow White. But Sandy hates his guts.), but she feeds off of Rosie’s anxiety and gets very upset when they’re shut in a room together.
Which means the baby gates are going to be particularly traumatic if we’re shutting them in an area or out of an area.
In other words, all of our baby gates have to have doors that can stay open for the dogs when we’re not using them for the baby because I will cry if I think my other babies are unhappy.
I’m not even going to tell you how much money I just spent on gates. You don’t want to know. To be honest, I don’t want to know either. But at least all three of my babies will be safe and happy.
Now I just have to get rid of my old death trap Ikea dresser and plug up nine billion electrical sockets. Isn’t babyproofing FUN?
Saranity Now! 
