I’m thinking about renting an apartment.  Not only would I finally be able to get a good night’s sleep, but I’d have a place to put something without fear of imminent discovery, investigation, and destruction.  I’m getting forgetful about the gates.  I tend to forget to firmly close the one to the new den most often.  Here’s the result, discovered after feeling suddenly relaxed in another room, as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders – and then realizing that the reason why was the sudden quiet, and upon investigation:

A couple days ago, I failed to firmly close the stairway gate.  That gate will *usually* close itself if you let it slam closed behind you.  But then it gets slightly out of alignment, and just bounces back open.  Katie again was relieved to hear a sudden lack of destruction, and when she went to investigate, the boys had just about made it to the first landing.  We let them crawl the rest of the way up with supervision. (Then there was the time Dexter found the stairway gate open or pulled it open – I’m not sure - and made a run for it on his own.  This time his balance was a bit off and whack – there is another bruise on his head.  I swear he is attempting to collect as many as possible.  Luckily, the bruise was all he received from his climbing foray.)

The boys love to attempt to escape.  Fortunately, we have the baby proof door handle thing-ies on the Front door and the door to the Garage.  Unfortunately, the doors to the Laundry room and to the downstairs bathroom are the lever-style, and Nicholas has (surprise surprise) figured out how to open them.  Worse – the bathroom one can be locked from the inside, but I’m not sure how to unlock it from the outside (don’t see an external opening, but there is a ridge off to one side that I’m planning on investigating, eventually), so I’m either going to have to replace the door handles or go buy a Saws-All just to be on the safe side.

They can pull most of the contents of the kitchen drawers out through the small crack at the front.  I’ve had to baby proof the downstairs and master bathrooms, and I know that the guest bathroom is coming soon.  Plus, the toilet lid downstairs needs to be installed, and I still don’t have a clue what to do about the toilet paper.  All plants have disappeared, and I just gave up and zip-tied shut the crystal cupboard.  Soon the living room will be re-arranged, because as soon as they learn to climb onto couch they’ll be at the television.  But once we move that couch, I’ll have to figure out how to protect the open-faced entertainment center.  My god – I was never so much an engineer as I am now – it’s all I can do to stay only 3 or 4 steps behind these guys.

So here’s the question – how long do I have until they can get out of their cribs???