Waterloo

I have had at least one little boy in the house long enough to understand that elegance is merely an aggravation, and safety hazards are cleverly disguised as innocently useful items. Toddlers think aesthetics are for eating. And side tables are for climbing. Lamps are for pulling or twirling. Bookshelves are for emptying. Brooms are for wielding as weapons.

My personal experience is this: Electrical outlets cannot be childproofed. No matter how I try there will always be one Sharpie marker or a tube of Desitin that will mysteriously turn up in a little fist. It is nearly impossible to store cleaning supplies high enough or locked up enough and that the words, “No! Danger! Not a toy!” may as well be a foreign language.

And just like a foreign language, even if you yell the words louder or say them over and over again to the person who does not understand them, they are still not comprehended. And they may even become patently disregarded, after too much repetition and even when (or because) you begin sign language and “tone” to convey the message.

It is really not that my children are willfully destructive. They don’t touch, explore, eat, throw, or open and shut things loudly and repeatedly because they want to get under my skin or terrify everyone present. No children do. They do it because they are kids and their job is to explore and learn things – like that glass things break when they drop them. Every single time. That juice spills when you tip it or hold it upside down. Every single time. That pushing buttons on the remote or TV or DVD will make something happen. Every single time. That the milk carton will come off the top shelf faster and heavier than you can handle it. Every single time.

I believe that little boys are particularly tenacious in their explorations and experiments. But I am beginning to know pretty much exactly what they will go for when I’m not watching. I almost know intuitively (which is not as simple as you would think - many people have no idea, I assure you) the type of knick knack or unsuspecting tool will immediately be challenged from its rightful decorative niche or useful purpose. I have become so clever and conscious of every possible temptation to my budding engineer/artist and technophile/explorer that I am almost to the point where I can take a shower in peace, knowing that whatever it is that is not a toy is out of sight, out of mind, or locked in the bathroom with me.

Call me lazy or a cynic, but three years into this little boy thing, I have decided to accept the fact that even though it should be OK to leave certain things in view or reach, it just isn’t. I have now cried all the “never-going-to-have-anything-nice-ever-again” tears that I’m going to and resigned myself to reduced beautification and constant vigilance on their “destroy-by-means-of-natural-curiosity-and-common-household-accoutrements” front.

And yet with my remarkable adaptation to the battle at hand and surrender by minimalism, I still have lapses in judgment. Like when our filter pitcher cracked recently and needed replaced, I thought it would be a good idea to buy this:

Yeah, that’s a spigot with sixteen 8 oz. glasses of H2O (my reason for the purchase) behind it. Within detectable reach of any two-year-old recon mission. Inexplicable, really. Who’s side am I on, anyway?