Friday, April 22, 2005

Child-Proof But Not Idiot-Proof

Francine and I recently deployed child-proofing items all through our house. Last night while trying to plug in the rechargable baby monitor, I struggled for several minutes with the electrical outlet caps before realizing I wasn't going to be able to pry the things off with my bare hands - ("Damn," I muttered, "Don't these things come with instructions?"). In a moment of brilliance, I spied a container that Fran keeps hat pins in. I tried jamming the end of the pin into the tiny crack that I guess you're supposed to slip your finger nail under (yes, poking a metal object into an electrical socket - what I great fatherly example to set), but ended up not getting anywhere with it. Instead, the pin bent backwards and sunk into the area close to the cuticle - about half an inch in. Owch.

After pulling the pin out, stopping the flow of blood, and struggling in the washroom with the child-proof cap on the acetaminophen bottle, I realized that if I wanted to get at the plug I should have done the obvious thing. I should have sat my son in front of the outlet and within a minute he'd have figured out how to pull the outlet cap off and then start chewing on it.

1 comment:

growden said...

I had to make my kitchen cat-proof.

The boys had an odd tendancy to open/close the cupboards, often locking each other in.

Bad kittie.