Repost: Babyproofing: An art and a process, not a science

I've contributed to the Orlando Sentinel's Moms at Work blog once a week since 2010. The blog is changing content management systems and my old posts will no longer be available to the public, so I'm reposting them here, in the order that they were originally posted. Enjoy.
Oct. 27, 2010

When I was pregnant, friends and family members told my husband and me that we needed to babyproof our home. We agreed, and actually did it...to a point.
We thought as long as electrical sockets and dangerous chemicals were secure and out of her reach, we were pretty safe.

We were wrong. Oh, how wrong we were.

The following is a short list of some of the things my daughter has managed to get her hands on and destroy in the three months since she learned to walk:

• multiple magazines (she has a particular, inexplicable animus against The Economist)
• newspapers, of course
• a Bible
• a cardboard -- cardboard! -- copy of Goodnight Moon
• my husband's iPhone (it went for a swim in the dog's water bowl)
• a ceramic bowl from Japan (my fault; I thought it was too high on a shelf for her to reach)
• my cherished 25-year-old copy of the novel A Swiftly Tilting Planet
• a drinking glass (neither my husband nor I can recall which of us was silly enough to leave it within her reach)
• a beaded necklace I placed on my nightstand as I changed into comfortable clothes after work
• the remote control for the television (this broke my husband's heart)

Sigh.

We're getting better about quickly scanning every room she enters so we can move anything we determine she can rip to pieces -- which we've learned she can do in the blink of an eye.

In the meantime, our hair is graying rapidly.