Fail Gate

Ahh...parents, remember those days when your child didn't move? Let your mind take you back...

Remember when they just laid there and could barely even roll over? You could put a play gym over them and get along with your chores/cooking/cleaning/etc. You could walk through door ways without having to step over gates or open and close swinging doors.

This is what our entryway looked like back in those good 'ole days.

But then...

She started rolling, then army crawling, then real crawling, then climbing, then climbing stairs...yipes. We had to do something! And, as you can see, this is an awkward area to block off.

Heath wanted to buy a long baby gate, the kind that screws into the wall. Nope. Not having it. I don't want to screw something into the wall. We'll just have to keep her away from it.

Ha!

We were so sick of going over and saving her from the stairs that we would make games of it.

"If I throw this block and it lands in the toy bin (7 feet away), then you have to go get Lucy. If I miss, I have to go get her."

Just after her first birthday, this is what had happened.

Obviously, this jimmy-rigged, trashy, fail gate wasn't going to work. It would be a temporary fix until Heath got the other one ordered online.

And, then he screwed it to the wall. :{

Again, the lighting is kind of yellowish on my phone. Sorry!

It makes going in and out of our living room kind of a nightmare. However, I have come to the realization that it will probably be there for the next five years or so, through all of our children becoming mobile (three planned, as of now).

Childproofing your home kind of takes all design out - not that those TV trays and dog bowls were adding much to my initial decor.

Here's to five plus years of gated-ness. :(

When we take it out, the room will seem huge! That's a plus I look forward to.