The Baby Gate

We have a baby gate. We don't actually have our own baby but our delicious, giggly, softest hair in the world grandson is often at our house. So we have a baby gate. It wasn't easy to buy. The space at the top of our wooden, horrifyingly head-knocking stairs if a little boy tumbled down them, is extra wide. I brought home three gates, trying to find one to fit before Tom calmly suggested that I measure the space. Oh. Oh, yeah. I still couldn't find one to fit perfectly, but we found one that has an extension, so it fits perfectly and strongly.

This is important because, although I naively thought Wes would ignore the gate, he hangs on the gate and attempts to, apparently, make a getaway in the prison garbage truck often. And if he hears grandadddy coming up the stairs? He puts his head down and crawls to that gate like he has a jet propelled rocket up his tiny butt. So the strength ended up being important.

We baby-proof when Wes is coming over. Everything comes off the coffee table, chairs block the entrance to the dining room, and his toys are all pulled out. We thought we would take the gate up and down, but it's kind of a pain to put up. So we just leave it up. The drill is when the Wesinator is in the house, the gate door is closed and locked. It's just a habit. So the gate just stays up, with the door open when it's just us.

It's there all the time. We don't really see it anymore. But sometimes when I go through it to go up or down the stairs, I look down. And, in my mind, I see our sweet blonde boy trying to make a getaway.

And I smile.