(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

His head was actually stuck.

A Tale of 2 Beds - Part 15

Once again, here are the links to the previous 13 tales. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Frustration, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14.

If you have forgotten just how destructive my kids can be check Part 3 (destruction of a bed frame) and Part 5 (destruction of everything in the locked closet). A year and a half since any massive destruction and we thought it was over. Nope, not even close.

They ripped apart a mattress. You can see pieces of the foam laying around the room. The cover is torn and on the floor. The springs have been picked clean. The only reason we realized this had happened was when she got her sock stuck on the springs. He is sitting off to the side of this picture and looks very proud of himself. Of course after taking the photo, we had to know why they would take a mattress apart. He very calmly explained that he wanted to know what was inside a mattress. She just helped. UGH

The logical consequence of this is that he lost his mattress. We did not go out and buy him a new one. He slept on the floor for a month. Her punishment was not being able to share a room with him. They were both upset. I keep this blog a year in the past for many reasons. The ability to laugh at this type of behavior wasn't my plan, but it's a really nice side effect.

Evil Child

She locked him in the closet. The closet we have already removed the doorknob from so they can't open it. She somehow got it opened, told him to get inside (he does whatever she says), and then closed the door. Then she decided she can't open it again so he's locked inside. Evil, evil child.

 He took this photo of her.

 She took this photo of him.

Blocks Box

As we found places for all of the Christmas toys, we needed to rearrange some things. The cardboard blocks were often played with, but rarely put back on the shelves so they were an ideal candidate. Still we didn't know where else we would put them.

Then we bought a new mattress (for us, not the kids). It came with two cardboard ends to protect it and the blocks fit perfectly inside. So we had a great place to put the blocks, but where to put the box?

It fits perfectly in front of the fireplace. It blocks the kids from opening the fireplace. It does mean we have toys in the living room which we were trying to avoid, but these are easy to clean up. The kids still play with them often and it's not like we keep anything else on the fireplace so they didn't take away any of our space.

A Tale of Two Beds - Part 7

Here we go again. If you are new, feel free to start at the beginning of this series:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Frustration
Part 6

There hasn't been a new post in this series since July. Maybe you were holding out hope that my kids had finally realized just to sleep in their beds... or maybe you have met my kids. sigh If you remember, my kids have what we call the prison room, only not quite as nice. They have mattresses, sheets, blankets, pillows, and a stuffed animal. No bed frame or other furniture allowed.

Look Mommy, it's a Snoopy house!

We built it together and will play here instead of sleeping.

Then they get tired and do eventually fall asleep (she is under there). This works well until they do something like roll over or move an arm and the entire thing falls on top of them. If it were me, I would sleep on top of it instead of having it fall on top of me.

Here's a picture from the next night. She at least changed the way she is sleeping so she has more room to roll without it falling on top of her. As long as they sleep, I've decided I don't care.

Frustration

Sweet Daughter looks at me concerned, "Mama, you look frustrated. Why you frustrated? Is it because we didn't take a nap? Because we moved our mattresses again? Because we climbed up in the window? Because we were hitting and kicking? Because we aren't behaving? Because we tore the window covering? Why Mama, Why?"

Gee, wonder why I would look frustrated. By the way, the window they climbed up in is about 2.5 feet off the floor and has only the tiniest sill that they were BOTH standing on to take down the window covering.

They are still in what we call the prison room. 2 mattresses, sheets, blankets, pillows. Nothing else allowed in the room. No bed frames, no toys, no books, no furniture. It's our attempt to keep them safe, but they continue to find new ways of getting in trouble. Today I was afraid they broke the window from the sudden banging I heard before I rushed in. Frustrated doesn't even being to cover it. (Yes, this is the exact type of thing I could see myself doing as a child.)

A Tale of Two Beds - Part 4

In case you missed the rest of this series start here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

So after we removed the bed frames from their room, you would think they would run out of things to do. My kids are excellent problem solvers and have mastered working together though. First came the fun of moving the mattresses around the room.

Then, in addition to moving the mattresses, they started making a mess with the very few things they had available. Here you can see the blankets, pillow, pants, socks, and their lovies spread around the room.

Many parents will see where this is headed. Lucky parents will never have to deal with this.

*NOTE* Do not scroll down if you get sick easily. Do not scroll down if you are so visual you can smell things just by seeing a photo of them. Feel free to scroll down if you think having twins is fun and cute - I promise this will cure that.






The only thing left to use to make a mess in the room? They both took off their diapers (notice they had been duct taped on because this is not the first time this happened). The diapers were left clean and yet... over in the corner between the ducky and the door... ewwwwww. They tried to hide the evidence by pushing it under the door. Cleaning between the bottom of the door and the carpet is not easy, in case you are wondering. 

Of course after handling the evidence with their hands, they had dirty hands and very few options. So they wiped them all over the walls. Trails of poo on the floor where they had walked through it and on all 4 walls. You can see from the photos below (where I had already started cleaning) the thoroughness of their job.

 

I called my husband and demanded he come home from work to help me. Unfortunately, he couldn't do that so I was left with a room covered in poo, two kids covered in poo, two mattresses, sheets, and everything else all covered in poo.

By the end of the day, my kids were clean, the mattresses, sheets and clothes were all washed. I had cleaned all of the walls - a few patches of paint even came off in the process. My husband was kind enough to come home with a new steam carpet cleaner. The kids were in so much trouble that this was the last time they took off their diapers. We did still continue to duct tape their diapers for a few more months just to make sure. So far, this was my least favorite phase the kids have gone through.

Please tell me you have gone through something similar and that my kids aren't the only ones who have a need to destroy everything possible.

A Tale of Two Beds - Part 5

Child Proofing

The amount of child proofing you will have to do depends on your child. Some kids will follow directions and are very careful not to get hurt. Those aren't my kids. Here's what we did and re-did in the constant battle to keep our kids safe.

My son became fascinated with the electrical outlets. He also likes to suck on his fingers so he was trying to stick wet fingers into the outlets. Clearly a problem we needed to address. Most people use the round outlet plugs. These come in many different brands, but do have a couple of issues. After taking them in and out repeatedly they become loose and easier to remove - great for the adults, but kids can also pull these out. Once they are pulled out, or dropped while you are using the outlet, they become a choking hazard. All kids love putting things in their mouths and these are especially tempting. Instead, we chose to use the sliding outlet covers. This way everyone stays safe.

Happy girl

For my kids, slamming cabinet doors, especially when the other one had a hand in the way, became exciting. I started researching cabinet locks. If you have cabinet knobs then the sliding locks are a popular choice. My son spent every day at his mother's day out for a month playing with these. They locks they had used in the toddler room for 10 years without an issue my son took off. Good problem solving skills, but really makes our life more difficult. There are also spring action locks. With these you open the door an inch or so and then press down in order to open it the rest of the way. My issue with these is that kids can open it a bit, stick their fingers in and still manage to smash their hands. I knew if it was possible to use it to get hurt, my kids would. Instead, we went with the magnetic locks. These don't show from the outside and have a switch so you can turn them on or off rather than having to uninstall them when you no longer need them. So far we haven't even lost the magnetic key!

Firefighter and a basket head

Our next issue became door knob covers. First we went with the "easy" door knob covers. This worked for about a week. That's when my kids discovered if you push a tiny finger in just the right spot inside the cover the entire thing falls off the knob. Then they simply open the door and bring both pieces to us so proud of their accomplishment. Not what we had in mind.

Then we upgraded to this type. These are a pain in the... rear to open. (This is a public blog!) My kids broke off the piece that covers the lock and tried using the same pressure point. Luckily that didn't work! This was a huge help for a few weeks. It was around that time they discovered that if I'm distracted with one child and a door is open they could get it off. All the unattended child had to do was slam the door into the wall. When the knob cover hit the wall it would loosen up the snaps and they could then use tiny fingers to pry it off. While we tried never having an unattended child, this is not realistic if you have two. Once again the adults didn't give up and came up with another solution. I would love to take full credit since it was my discovery, but here's the real story.

Pirates love to plunder.

It was late and I was tired. Very, very tired. The knob cover came off again and I quickly snapped it back into place and got both kids into bed. A couple of days later my husband asked why I had put it on backwards. I had no clue that I had done that, but it seems to have solved the problem. The knob cover hasn't come off since. Score!

We also discovered that the rubber tips on the door jamb stoppers aren't that difficult to remove. These are also a choking hazard. Kids love playing with these, after all they make that cool "boing" sound. We debated what to do about this. We considered gluing the rubber piece on, which is what most child proofing experts recommend. Others say to buy the child safe ones. We went lazy and just removed them all together. As long as the door isn't being slammed against the wall, it's not a huge deal. The one door they do slam against the wall will just have to be repaired once we pass this stage.

Do I really have to wear this?

Our playroom doesn't have a door, it's great for an open floor plan, but not so great at keeping the kids safe. We went looking for a baby gate. Most weren't large enough for the opening and I had some very specific requirements. A lot of baby gates have square, triangle, or rhombus openings which make a great ladder. I'm not sure who came up with that design. The ones with vertical bars are more difficult to climb, but certainly not impossible. We went with this gate. The netting makes it difficult to climb and it fits most areas. My kids didn't learn how to open the gate until they were 2, which was after we no longer needed it.