The other day, a friend's 2 1/2-year-old told her mother, "When you go to sleep, I'm going to unlock the door, walk to Publix and buy some fruity treats." This is the same kid who recently, when someone asked why a light was on, said, "I got on my stool and turned it on." They had previously thought the switch was too high for him. I expect to find he's been found toddling towards Publix any day now.

We have those outlets in the bathrooms but not kitchen. The kitchen outlets have plug protectors.

Ginger, would we have to have an electrician install those outlets or is this something Christopher could do on his own?

I've discovered there is no such thing as "toddler proof". What they tout as road blocks are actually speed bumps. Given enough time, a toddler can get past just about any kid-proof device--even ones that are difficult for adults to open. The idea is to slow them down enough so that you can catch them in the act.

I've gotten some more gray hairs just by reading these stories.

Gee, you'd think that juliana and smonster were sisters or something.

If so, she's the evil one, tempting me into all sorts of fannish obsessions.

Then again, I'm the one who gave her Fernet.

Hmmm.

Joe's definitely the more freaky out one than I am. I give Em a pretty wide net and let her explore stuff. If she gets hurt, I comfort her and talk to her about it (not that she gets it always) and let her go back about her business.

Now, I don't let her play with knives, poke things into sockets, or if I see her about to do something that could really really hurt her, I stop her, but for the most part, I let her be inquisitive and if she bumps her head or falls down, she bumps her head or falls down.

We hold hands when we're near the street or in parking lots. And this she knows. If she sees us going near a street, she grabs our hands automatically.

I spend my parenting days overlooking babyhood and toddlerhood in a constant state of ready alertness. I am Worst Case Scenario Guy and once yelled at EM because she wasn't walking behind Emmett when he was going up a stone stairway (without a rail!) when he was 2.

My brain is like Jason Bourne constantly calculating the risk ratio in any scenario. There was never a time in Emmett's toddler days where I wasn't between him and the street. I let that leash out verrrrrry slowwwwwly.

Huh. Hec is my sockpuppet. I wonder what this means for Frank.

Christopher should be able to do it, Cash. It's just like replacing any other outlet. It's within my limited electrical skills, which I think of as "white wire to white wire, black wire to black wire."

Well, WTF?

98.7 fired Jamie, Jack, and Stench.

Again.

That's twice in less than a year.

@@

A friend of a friend discovered her four-year-old in their car. He'd turned it ON. The reason they discovered it, since it was long past his bedtime, was because he was RAMMING THE CAR into the pilings (?) -- it was one of those houses on stilts you see in NC and other beachy places.

::faints at mere thought::

but for the most part, I let her be inquisitive and if she bumps her head or falls down, she bumps her head or falls down.

I'm not worried about bumps and bruises and scrapes. I just know people whose children have been killed because they wandered into a quiet residential street. Kid stepped off the curb to get a toy, and the truck that was backing up didn't see her.

Or my friend Claudine who went to pet the doggy when her parents weren't looking, and had her face ripped off. 260 stitches to sew it back.

Or, of course, ex-GF who got run over by a riding lawnmower. (No way I'd let a kid play in a yard while I was mowing. Dude, rocks and shit fly out the blower all the freaking time.)

I totally live in the It Just Takes One Fuckup mindset.

The very first night that Emmett slept away from me after the separation, his mother let him roam barefoot through an un-toddler proofed house and he burned both feet badly on a heating vent. He literally had grill marks on both feet and had to be given a shot of morphine.

I never would've let Emmett run barefoot through a house I didn't know, especially if it weren't child proofed. I just wouldn't. In fact, he probably never would've been outside of my range for a jump-and-grab. Not only that, I would've been constantly manuevering during the entire dinner party so that I would never have an inattentive non-parent between me and Emmett to impede the inevitable jump-and-grab.

See, while I have simplified my parenting philosophy to a Good Enough 3 pronged approach of (1) Keep them alive; (2) Love them a lot; (3) Set boundaries. I do spend a lot of energy on (1).

Amy, sounds like a story that was big in my local newspapers when I was a kid (maybe 11 or 12). Seems a tot of around 4 wanted to go to grandma's one night, so he got in the car and started to drive.

Luckily, he lived on a one-way street. The other way would have taken him down a steep hill, across a busy street, and into the river.