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.

If you're using outlet covers to protect small people, you should probably know that the kind with a spring-loaded sliding cover work the best. Traditionally, children pull off the ones that just plug into a single outlet. Then they choke on them. How do children survive?

How do children survive?

Neurotic freaked out parents.

While I was changing Olivia's diaper, Owen scaled the kitchen counter and tried to stick one of my metal shish kabob skewers (which had, up until now, been well hidden) into the plugged in toaster.

My mother told me over Christmas about my toddler-age "climbing on things" phase. I apparently became quite adept at rearranging furniture to create climbable pathways so that I could get up high. Once she found me on top of the refrigerator.

This is why my children will be kept strapped tightly in their swingy chairs at all time. Who needs motor skills any way, right? I figure we're only a few years away from individual hover chairs...

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.

There must be a third out there somewhere.

How do children survive?

My mother used a leash. Literally. With a harness.

Oh, Hec, OUCH. Poor Emmett's feet.

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.

See Ginger's comment. I have no freaking idea.

I used to spend a lot of time wondering, possibly due to sleep dep, how kids survived the 1800s and earlier. Open fires in the hearth, all those flying hooves from passing horses, spoiled meat and unrefrigerated food, choking hazards, sewing needles lying around ... Of course, the infant/child mortality rate was a lot higher then. Still, for all our babyproofing equipment, an active toddler will find approximately A MILLION ways to hurt herself.