Everyone I know says that we need to childproof the house. So far, nothing we have tried has worked very well. Jonas is an expert climber and figured out the drawer latches in less time than it took us to install them.

We bought a fridge lock about a week ago. Jonas likes to crack eggs in the most unusual places, like his bed and under the couch. He also enjoys pouring his own cranberry juice and although he does get it into his cup quite efficiently, he also douses the floor, and not just the kitchen floor. Pouring juice that stains in the kitchen would be just too expected. Jonas enjoys the spontaneity of the bathroom and his bedroom floor. After me yelling a lot didn’t seem to curb this newly found self sufficiency, we picked up the lock. I was so excited.

We installed it when Jonas was asleep. When he woke up from his nap he stumbled blearily to the fridge, and while looking absently in the other direction, gave the door a tug. It didn’t budge. Jonas, still not really looking at it, gave it a harder pull. No dice. So he looked at it, puzzled. Then he saw it and GASPED in horror! He whipped around, glared at me, and yelled “WHAT???” in the most accusing tone I have ever heard him use. I burst out laughing at him. I couldn’t help it. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen him do. As soon as I started laughing he launched himself into a colossal tantrum, hysterically pulling on the door handle and screaming and stomping his feet. I just laughed at him. I got him calmed down eventually and offered to get him a drink. I was so excited. I had reclaimed the refrigerator. I was once again, MASTER OF MY DOMAIN. I felt so liberated. I even called my mother and gramma to brag.

A half an hour later Jonas walked over to the fridge, took a closer look at the lock, and after thinking about it for a few seconds, slid it open. Like I said, there is no childproofing around this kid. The cute thing is that he now locks it every time he closes the fridge, which, sadly, slows me down more than it does him. Every so often I fantasize about actually keeping something off limits to Jonas. I have given up on the concept, but Chris still has hope.

We were at the store this weekend and I left Chris unattended in the baby department a little too long. When he found me sitting in the garden department “testing” the lawn furniture by feeding Maggie for twenty minutes he showed me three safety devices that he was sure would simplify our lives.

I was not impressed. “Look!” he exclaimed. “An oven lock! We could keep him out of the oven!”

“But he doesn’t go in the oven. We need something to prevent him from locking the oven and starting the self-clean cycle when we are cooking dinner. That is our problem.” The oven lock jumped into the cart, regardless.

“Well, how about this? It’s a sliding door alarm!” I admit I was impressed. Jonas has figured out how to unlock the sliding door and we’ve been worried that he will take off without us noticing. We worry about this because he’s tried, quite successfully, on several occasions. So into the cart the alarm thingy went. Then Chris showed me this lock for closet doors with knobs. Jonas has been found curled up in our bed with several of Chris’ comic books that he Shanghaied from the closet. I was very hopefully about this one. It looked really hard to open. So, yet another valuable find.

Later that night, after the kids had gone to bed, Chris installed the locks. I watched. Chris put the sliding door alarm up, way out of Jonas’ reach. Then he slid the door over the alarm to test it. It went off. It also jammed the door. After yanking on the door for ten minutes while I laughed at him, Chris decided not to leave the alarm up. I went to bed.

While I was asleep Chris discovered that the knobs on his closet doors were about two feet apart. The cabinet lock he bought for them only reached about six inches. So he came downstairs and locked the TV armoire. Then he installed the oven lock, uneventfully.

The next morning we found Jonas downstairs playing with the oven lock. It was completely off, and had piqued his curiosity about the oven. “Gee” he must have thought. “They are trying to keep me out of this. This must be really great! I will play with it all day!” I discovered that I am not coordinated enough to open the cabinet lock. I will not be watching TV anymore, at least not until Jonas figures it out and will open it up for me.