Safety

This is probably the 35th in a string of realizations for me that everyone who has kids already knows but, here we go.

Heidi was out with the girls.

Home alone I thought I would try to both monitor the baby and accomplish some tasks that Heidi wanted me to work on. So I moved to what we call the Lion Room because it has a very old lion rug in it. (Long story but we were not involved in the shooting of the lion.) This is the room where we fold laundry so I put Amelia down on the ground and, while watching her, began to fold my stuff. (I just put Heidi's stuff in a pile because I do not understand how to fold a bra. She really appreciates this nuanced approach to laundry.)

I could elaborate in many paragraphs about what went wrong but for those of you who are reading this whilst ostensibly working I will go with bullets. Here is what went wrong:

• She crawled under the couch and found the electrical cords that I thought I had hidden from her.
• She crawled over to the stove and picked up some charcoal bits.
• She got underneath the throw rugs and began to cry.
• She crawled atop the lion rug, quite cute, but then began to try and tear out and eat the lion's hair.

After stopping all of these things in a very safe and fatherly manner I decided that we should move to another, safer room. We headed to the TV room where I knew that we wanted to install rubber bumpers on all of the sharp edges. This room is set up for Amelia so I figured that I could do both. I unwrapped the bumpers and peeled off the double sided tape that would apply them to the edges of the counter tops and the like. I looked right at Amelia and she was happily playing with a soft, kid appoved toy.

The thing I did next took 15 seconds.

I applied the bumper to the coffee table. When I turned around Amelia had one hand inside of the box that the bumpers had come in. That hand was held fast by the tape that originally held the box shut. The other hand was feeding the backing of the double sided tape into her mouth.

In teacher lingo this is called experiential education. I had heard from Heidi that it was impossible to do anything at home while keeping the baby alive but I have never experienced it. Well Heidi, now I not only know about it but I undersand it.