Arms race

As my faithful readers know, David's been sleeping in the Big Boy Bed for two weeks now. It's gone pretty well. What we did to keep him confined to quarters was put one of the standard Safety 1st doorknob guards on the inside of his door. For those of you who have no kids, the Safety 1st guard is a 2-piece shell that snaps around the doorknob band then has little grips an adult can squeeze enough to catch the real knob and open it. In the hands of a weak-gripped 2-year-old, it should just spin and not let him open said door. It worked until yesterday.

Yesterday morning, Jane got up first and went to shower. I stayed in bed. I heard him get up and start rattling around the doorknob. Then something caught my eye - I looked out, and there was David, marching out into the hallway where he then pitched his bear over the railing.

Since I knew the gate was open, I bolted out of bed and caught him before he tried to head downstairs. On his dresser, neatly, were the two halves of the doorknob guard.

This called for some quick thinking. Last night, I tore a strip of duct tape into two long, thin pieces and did a wrap of them around the doorknob guard to secure the halves better. Just in case, though, we closed the gate before bed.

Good thing. This morning, Jane went in to get him Both pieces of duct tape had been neatly removed and placed on the dresser. The guard was still on, though - he hadn't gotten around to removing it yet.

So today, I've taken a roll of clear heavy-duty packing tape and wrapped it several times around the guard. I can barely open the thing myself, and it's survived one nap.

Of course, now I figure my little Houdini'll find a way to smuggle a knife into his room tonight. But I expect it to keep him stymied for quite a while.

Unrelated note: I was rooting for Smarty Jones yesterday. I don't really care about racing overall, but there's something about the big "name" races and the whole Triple Crown mystique. Maybe it's because it's become such a rare event. But the pageantry of the whole spectacle still captures my interest every year.