Countertop High
Abbie’s favorite perch is the kitchen countertop. She’s learned to climb into a baby highchair, toddler booster seat, adult chair, or whatever else we may have haphazardly left near the counters, and scramble across to pay dirt.
One reason she climbs up there may be the illicit thrill children derive from climbing. I certainly remember the childhood high I got from being high as I climbed onto our kitchen counters more than a few times. Sometimes I even had a legitimate need to climb on the counters, like when mom would tell me to fetch a pen for her, not realizing that the best pen was hiding behind the sugar. It was fun to treat the kitchen like a playground, see the world from a new angle, and be as tall as the adults. That last one was important since adults can’t push you around if you’re as tall as they are, which is why they always hoist you up and down to the ground before punishing you.
I don’t know if Abbie thinks that way. That sort of cogitation may come later in Abbie’s childhood, kind of like speech. For now I’m pretty sure her main reason for climbing up there is to get into stuff. I hide lots of good stuff on the countertops. Those pill bottles that make a cool rattling noise when shaken are up there. So are all of her dishes, which Abbie likes playing with even when they’re not lined with food. Most importantly we keep all of our food above the countertops, especially the sugar-infused cereals that she likes.
Needless to say, I don’t want her on the counters. She could fall, hurt herself on impact, and probably not even learn a lesson from the ordeal. Even though she probably can’t defeat the child-resistant caps, I don’t want her getting into the pills, as an overdose on Tums could be catastrophic. She could cause all sorts of trouble with the dishes, from breaking them, to hiding them behind the microwave, to just getting her grubby mitts all over them. When she gets into the food, she could make a giant mess spilling them all over, not to mention ruin her appetite for that snack I was about to give her.
She still climbs on the counters, though. If I want us to use chairs while eating, I have to keep them in our tiny kitchen. With five chairs, that means at least one is always automatically within climbing distance of a countertop. I’ve learned to deal with it, ignoring it when I hear her on the counters while I’m busy with the boys and pretending that she’s not making too much of a mess.
That was my attitude yesterday morning. I heard her on the countertop, but I had important work to do. I finished up and walked into the kitchen, expecting to scold her with a hand in a cereal box, or maybe hiding a sippy cup behind the plates. Instead I found her playing with a couple cans of formula. She was engaging in imaginative play, pretending to mix a little formula. Unfortunately, she didn’t read the directions since she didn’t have any water ready. Also she ignored the one scoop per 2-fluid ounce rule as most of the contents from two cans were covering the counter and floor.
I could only stand speechless with a million thoughts racing through my head. I’d have to find a way to run to the store that much sooner to replenish my formula stockpile. Cleaning that much spilled formula is a giant pain and can make a bigger, stickier mess if you’re not careful. She just wasted $30 worth of formula.
I wanted to scold her, but I couldn’t. I wanted to discipline her somehow, send her to her room, put her in timeout, ground her for a month, or something effective, but I couldn’t move. Instead I gave her an entire bag of Goldfish, sent her to the living room, and mourned my loss of formula.
I’ve since decided that we don’t need five chairs in the kitchen. The boys’ highchairs are the space-saving kind* that strap to a regular chair. I unstrapped the highchairs, stored their dining chairs downstairs, and now I sit on the floor with their not-so-highchair while feeding, otherwise storing their chairs on the countertop where Abbie can’t reach them. I moved Abbie’s booster seat into the hallway by the kitchen. I folded up the cheap folding chairs the adults use. Now there’s nothing for Abbie to climb on in the kitchen, and hopefully no way for her to climb onto the countertops. As a bonus, it opens up the free space in our tiny kitchen well. In fact, there’s so much free space, Abbie has no trouble opening the refrigerator door now.
* A.k.a. the “cheap” kind.
One reason she climbs up there may be the illicit thrill children derive from climbing. I certainly remember the childhood high I got from being high as I climbed onto our kitchen counters more than a few times. Sometimes I even had a legitimate need to climb on the counters, like when mom would tell me to fetch a pen for her, not realizing that the best pen was hiding behind the sugar. It was fun to treat the kitchen like a playground, see the world from a new angle, and be as tall as the adults. That last one was important since adults can’t push you around if you’re as tall as they are, which is why they always hoist you up and down to the ground before punishing you.
I don’t know if Abbie thinks that way. That sort of cogitation may come later in Abbie’s childhood, kind of like speech. For now I’m pretty sure her main reason for climbing up there is to get into stuff. I hide lots of good stuff on the countertops. Those pill bottles that make a cool rattling noise when shaken are up there. So are all of her dishes, which Abbie likes playing with even when they’re not lined with food. Most importantly we keep all of our food above the countertops, especially the sugar-infused cereals that she likes.
Needless to say, I don’t want her on the counters. She could fall, hurt herself on impact, and probably not even learn a lesson from the ordeal. Even though she probably can’t defeat the child-resistant caps, I don’t want her getting into the pills, as an overdose on Tums could be catastrophic. She could cause all sorts of trouble with the dishes, from breaking them, to hiding them behind the microwave, to just getting her grubby mitts all over them. When she gets into the food, she could make a giant mess spilling them all over, not to mention ruin her appetite for that snack I was about to give her.
She still climbs on the counters, though. If I want us to use chairs while eating, I have to keep them in our tiny kitchen. With five chairs, that means at least one is always automatically within climbing distance of a countertop. I’ve learned to deal with it, ignoring it when I hear her on the counters while I’m busy with the boys and pretending that she’s not making too much of a mess.
That was my attitude yesterday morning. I heard her on the countertop, but I had important work to do. I finished up and walked into the kitchen, expecting to scold her with a hand in a cereal box, or maybe hiding a sippy cup behind the plates. Instead I found her playing with a couple cans of formula. She was engaging in imaginative play, pretending to mix a little formula. Unfortunately, she didn’t read the directions since she didn’t have any water ready. Also she ignored the one scoop per 2-fluid ounce rule as most of the contents from two cans were covering the counter and floor.
I could only stand speechless with a million thoughts racing through my head. I’d have to find a way to run to the store that much sooner to replenish my formula stockpile. Cleaning that much spilled formula is a giant pain and can make a bigger, stickier mess if you’re not careful. She just wasted $30 worth of formula.
I wanted to scold her, but I couldn’t. I wanted to discipline her somehow, send her to her room, put her in timeout, ground her for a month, or something effective, but I couldn’t move. Instead I gave her an entire bag of Goldfish, sent her to the living room, and mourned my loss of formula.
I’ve since decided that we don’t need five chairs in the kitchen. The boys’ highchairs are the space-saving kind* that strap to a regular chair. I unstrapped the highchairs, stored their dining chairs downstairs, and now I sit on the floor with their not-so-highchair while feeding, otherwise storing their chairs on the countertop where Abbie can’t reach them. I moved Abbie’s booster seat into the hallway by the kitchen. I folded up the cheap folding chairs the adults use. Now there’s nothing for Abbie to climb on in the kitchen, and hopefully no way for her to climb onto the countertops. As a bonus, it opens up the free space in our tiny kitchen well. In fact, there’s so much free space, Abbie has no trouble opening the refrigerator door now.
* A.k.a. the “cheap” kind.
posted by Matt at
11:04 PM
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