Doorway to Abbie's Heaven

In Iowa, we have a saying: “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” It refers to Iowa’s volatile weather that can change radically, although not quite by the minute. In other words, if you don’t like the heat wave frying your part of the state, just wait for that blizzard ravaging the western edge of the state to hit. This saying gained popularity partly because of the weather’s importance to the state’s heirloom industry of farming, and partly because there usually isn’t anything more important to talk about in Iowa besides the weather. I imagine most regions of the country have similar sayings, though it changes a bit for areas with more stagnant weather. For example, Phoenix area residents could say, “if you don’t like the undeveloped land around you, wait a minute.” Northern Californians could say, “if you don’t like your home’s value, wait a minute.”

I bring this up because I mentioned a couple of days ago that Abbie can almost turn a doorknob and open a door by herself. I also mentioned that we are almost in a lot of trouble. Well, if I don’t like Abbie’s developmental stage, wait a minute. The day after I wrote that, we saw her open the door to her shut herself in her room, and let herself out a minute later. She can now open doors in our home by herself, and we’re now in trouble.

We’d be in a lot more trouble if our home had more doors. We have five doors that we don’t want her to open freely because we want to keep her shut out or in. Fortunately, they make child-resistant doorknob covers that make it difficult for little hands or big hands that are carrying groceries to open the door. The day after I saw her open the door, I bought enough to cover all the doors in the house.

First I stuck the knob covers on the back and front doors leading outside. There are plenty of things in the house she could get into that would annoy me, like finding and dumping an entire box of cereal on the floor, and a few things that are dangerous, like the liquid soap bottles she mysteriously insists on chewing on, but nothing is more dangerous than her sneaking outside. I haven’t seen her open either of these doors, but we need to be safe. Even if she did open an outside door, I don’t think she can open the screen door behind it, although if she can punch a few more holes in the screen she won’t have to open the door to sneak outside.

On the inside, I stuck a protector on our bedroom door because I hate searching for the TV remote after she’s been in there. I put a protector on the bathroom door because all of our soaps say “FOR EXTERNAL USE ONLY! SEEK IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION IF SWALLOWED!! KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN, YOU NEGLIGENT PARENT!!!” Ellie doesn’t like limiting her access to the bathroom since theoretically she should be learning to use the bathroom now, but I don’t like walking into the bathroom and finding the hand soap dispenser sucked dry.

I also set a protector on the inside and outside of her bedroom door to keep her on whichever side of the door I want her. When she should be asleep or in timeout, I want her trapped in her room instead of wandering the house in search of fresh meat to gouge. When the twins are sleeping in her room, I want her outside instead of reading books and screaming in frustration when they won’t tear the way she wants them. I have to occasionally remove the protectors when she shuts the door with herself on the wrong side. Sometimes she does this while playing with the door and enjoys repeatedly opening and closing it. Sometimes she does this when frustrated, or possibly just wants some privacy, and will walk into her room, slamming the door behind her. And I thought I had a few more years to go before my daughter was slamming her bedroom door in my face to shut me out.

That protects all of the dangerous and/or annoying doors. These covers should allow us to concentrate on the twins while Abbie roams free about the house without having to worry that she’s roaming her way out of the house. At least until she hits the developmental stage of defeating the covers, probably within a few days.