June 07, 2004
The year of living interestingly
Every parent of a two-year-old can tell you that they are a species completely unrelated to human beings. They try to kill themselves constantly, and if they're not busy playing with scissors, carpet knifes, vacuum cleaners, and hammers, they love to take things apart.
Yesterday, Alan experimented with my kitchen timer. It's an electrical kitchen timer, precise, runs up to 24 hours, I love it. First, the tried to pry the lid off and the little buttons out, and when he didn't succeed, he put the timer into the microwave and turned it on. (Oh, don't ask why he was able to access the microwave.) The timer... well, it must have been very quick; I don't think it had time to feel any pain. The microwave, I'm happy to report, survived.
Today, Alan had an even better idea. While I was in the kitchen, he pulled a chair up to the alarm system control box in the living room and started punching random numbers. We don't have a panic button and the only way to set the thing off is to arm it with the right code and then disarm it with the wrong code.
Alan, being a two-year-old, managed this within three minutes. The alarm went off howling. It's a loud siren. It's supposed to alert the entire neighborhood and I can tell you, it did its job fabulously.
The problem was, I didn't know the right code. Neither did the landlord. Nor the landlady. Nor the security company. Nobody did, except Alan who didn't divulge his information. See, we had never used the alarm system and the landlord had never reset it from the former tenant. We were stuck with an alarm system that we couldn't disable. It went off periodically and slowly drove our neighbors and us insane.
Eventually, we figured out that the living room motion detector was overreacting. So we could avoid setting the alarm off... as long as we didn't enter the front door (which opens on the living room) or go up and down the stairs (which go up from that same living room). So, while we were waiting for the alarm people to figure out what was going on, I was trapped outside and Doug was trapped with the kids upstairs.
I sat on the front steps while Doug came out to the little balcony above it, and we tried to cheer each other up. I had nothing to read outside. Occasionally a few drops of rain would fall. The kids didn't like to stay upstairs; Alan kept trying to break away from Doug, climb over the stair-gate and run down the stairs. "Mommy! Mooommmmyyyyyy!"
It was dinnertime, almost bedtime. More rain began to fall. I could hear Doug upstairs, struggling. "No, Alan! Don't touch that! I said no!"
The high point, I think, came when Alan moved another chair -- clearly, he's made a major breakthrough with the chairs -- to the edge of the balcony. The balcony has a wall around it that's too high for a two-year-old to climb. A two-year-old on a chair, though, can climb over it easily. On the other side is a five meter (16 foot) drop to hard stone tiles. Doug reached him in time, but we now realize that we have to rethink just what "child safe" means in our home. And either watch our little boy constantly, or start teaching him that "no" really, truly means no.
And the alarm? It took almost two hours and the concerted efforts of two security guards, the landlord, the landlady, unknown people at the security company headquarters, and us to solve the riddle, disarm the sensors, and release us from captivity.
Alan is two years and three months old. He will be two years old until next March.
Posted by claudia at June 7, 2004 10:43 PMoh, my, claudia!!! you and doug have my full sympathy, and i do mean "mit"leid! it sounds like you have a little kipper (although hopefully without the hyperactivity).
the three most terrible words strung together in english, we used to say, were "i'm *just* looking!" at 15 months, he had long surpassed any "childproof" lock, and we had resorted to chains with little padlocks for which we carried the keys around to keep the medicines and small tools locked up! he found buttons on the television in a panel that i had never even noticed; discombobulated those; put something metal in the microwave that *did* kill it...
we called ourselves "yuppies in reverse" because we had all the no-longer-working appurtenances of a better day (g): microwave, tv (the picture was never the same!), the record player, etc. now all this had to be done-
discontinuity - alec just had an echo cardiogram
-during those unavoidable "relief" moments; all others i had him in my sights. i imagined his little brain hatching plots for the second i took off for the bathroom! we had old, ratty furniture to barricade the china cabinet, etc. as for teaching him that no means no, well, the word "no" was like throwing down the gauntlet - and kipper *dearly* loved a challenge (g).
so, i really *do* mean mitleid! we used to say our job was keeping kipper alive long enough to "build up" rather than tear apart. luckily, we never had an alarm system to get hold of when he was little. someday, this will be one of your most cherished memories and a favorite story to tell. really. and on the plus side, it shows how smart and resourceful alan is. maybe he, too, will be reading _crime and punishment_ at 10. now 19, kipper is heading back to annapolis soon, hoping to get a summer job before his sophomore year at st. john's college starts in the fall. after he leaves each time, the very walls reverberate for weeks afterward! so, you see, there's hope! what you really need is your own bothari as a nanny (g)!
good luck!
lorraine
Posted by: lorraine at June 8, 2004 01:46 AMOh, yes, I *so* know what you mean. I remember that age with Brendan. It was terrifying. Your mention of the balcony reminds me of the incident with Brendan ending up on the wrong side of the stairwell bannister. And then I remember the incident with the meat fork, and, etc.
For your amusement, take a look at this link - I'm ordering one of the shirts for Maggie, who turns two tomorrow.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?T3D213188
Oh, Laura! This is absolutely fantastic! I want one of those, too. :-)
And happy birthday to Maggie! I know, of course, that she must be turning two since Alan is two and a bit, but somehow I'm still surprised how fast time goes by! Have a wonderful day,
Claudia
Posted by: claudia at June 8, 2004 09:54 AMThis is the second time I hear about small kids guessing the winner combinations for electronic security systems! In both cases the grown-up did not know the key themselves.
This mystery could drive us to two possible conclusions: A. Kids could be supernatural genius thieves, or B. Electronic security systems are crap.
You choose one.
Posted by: kit at June 8, 2004 11:11 AMMy brother and I, when we were about three and five years old, once opened a department store safe's combination lock in maybe ten minutes. Then we ran off. I couldn't tell you how we did it.
My vote is for A.
Posted by: carlos at June 8, 2004 02:17 PMOh Lord! Three is no better. We are now in a two-story house... the very first day, my 3-yr-old hauled himself onto a 2nd story window sill, stood there and leaned against the screen to look down. The screen popped from the frame and he fell to his belly on the sill just as I grabbed at his ankle... I don't think I had a good enough grip to have held him if he gone even a bit more forward with the screen.
Then there was the time a few years back where my (then three) daughter and the cat were playing a hilarious (apparently, to her) game on the linoleum floor batting back and forth ... something. I couldn't quite see at first. The cat would bat it away in some random direction and the kid would chase it and swipe at it to bat it sliding back toward the cat. But the thing sometime moved, oddly. Before being hit. I managed a look. They were using for their hocky puck a live scorpian.
The fourth/"first" Star Wars movie, where little Anakin destroys the droid battlestation by accident? Obviously the segment of the fan community that objected had too little experience with toddlers.
There was a comic book... "Power Pack". Toddlers with superpowers, and the most dangerous power of all given to the youngest, Kaitie, aged 4. An alien horde of bug-warriors in the mothership flee, yelling: "Run! It's... the little one!"
These creatures have the most amazing brains, among the largest, fastest, and best wired of any creatures in the universe, and those brains are nearly devoid of any inhibitions. They have hands, fingers, opposable thumbs -- not "among" the best but daintier, and more persistant, than any others. And they are applied to experiments that you or I could'nt conceive of. "What makes paint stick to the wall? ... Oh. Well, this flake doesn't, actually. Neither does this one. Or this one. Or this one. Or this one. Now the wall is two colors. THAT's not good. If I lick this flake maybe it'll stick back. No? Hmm. Maybe, if I make the wall all one color again, it'll be okay. So, I'll just pick off the rest of the top color. This one. And this one. And this one..."