Something snapped in me recently when I wrote a one star review of a child’s book. You see, until that day, I leaned towards writing more positive, upbeat pieces. I wrote about things I truly liked.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I had never written a negative review prior... I went after the remake of The Omen and a Motown collection of Beatles tunes, but there was no joy in it for me, no entertainment... until my review of So Big.

That day, I had fun. So I decided that I might as well warn people off a few bad products. If I could have a good time while doing it, well then so much the better. Then I figured I would do three separate one star reviews... sort of a Shmoo Triad O' Crap if you like. Just to be fair, and to prove to myself I'm not solely a one trick pony, I'll try to cover off different categories.

Hopefully I won’t start getting a reputation for being a Negative Nelly.

Now... on with the show.

The time has approached for me to childproof my house. My daughter is now 1 and she’s active. She does that weird groping, zombie walk that toddlers do, she is under our feet all the time, she races to climb the stairs when ever she can, she thinks the knife drawer is a chest which holds shiny, twinkly Treshah, she keeps shoving her fist in to the DVD and VCR trays, she presses every button she sees and if it’s on the carpet it’s fair game to get shoved in her mouth.

Not that long ago I saw her yank herself up to a standing position by grabbing hold of the dog’s wiener. He gave out the understandable yelp and bolted from the room and, after I washed her hands, I took her back over to Ben and tried to instill in her the sign for Gentle (for the love of God child... gentle) but I’m not under any illusions.

She’s at the age when she’s going to bust, scrape, scratch, bonk, conk and gouge herself on a daily basis. My job? Try to prevent as much of it as I can because, despite the fact that I’ve already slammed her little fingers shut in a door once, I really do care about her well-being.

While there are a ton of dangers in my house, I’m trying to address them as they make themselves apparent. When I realized that she would probably be able to stick her tongue in the electrical sockets I bought covers for them. When she discovered that the basement door didn’t close properly and continually pried it open, I took it off its hinges and re-hung it so that she couldn’t.

Now, she’s walking around, unstably, while holding on to things. Mostly our tables. Mostly our living room tables. Mostly our stone tile and solid metal living room tables.

A quick word about my childhood. You would have a hard time noticing it when you meet me but I came very close to losing three quarters of my right ear when I was four. The scar that curves it’s way from the top of my ear and in to my ear canal is almost invisible from the front. The back is where you can really notice it, but luckily my ears don’t stick out much.
What (pray tell) caused my ear to almost fall off? Why thank you for asking, it was my parent’s coffee table. I was bouncing around on the couch being four, my father shifted his weight and I pitched, head first, on to the corner of the coffee table. It was sharp.

So, I’m not a big fan of sharp edges on coffee tables even though I own one. I have already envisioned my daughter taking a tumble and caving in her forehead on my interior design scheme.

I ran out and bought 3 packs of The First Years 4 Safety Corner Bumpers. Each pack contains four corner bumpers and each bumper is a nice thick rubbery plastic material.

Pros:

1) When you are in the act of buying them, you get a warm, fuzzy feeling that you are protecting your child and other people get to witness that you do in fact like your child

2) Each bumper has that alluring “New Plastic” smell that people love so much.


Cons:

Assembly. Yes... assembly. You can’t just buy them and slap them on, there is assembly. It says that they can be pushed in to place in just moments but that’s several moments and that’s for each piece.
Each pack of bumpers comes equipped with an insert of pre-cut double-sided adhesives. You have 2 square pieces (for each inner side) and 1 triangle shaped piece (for the inner top) per bumper. All these adhesives have to be stripped and then carefully placed. If you mess up and pull the adhesive off both protective strips it will be ruined and you do not get extras. Its meticulous and time consuming. I‘m graced with naturally chubby digits (I swear... it’s like pounding a keyboard with a bunch of mallets sometimes), so I have a trickier time pealing back adhesive strips than some. To do all 12 carefully, took me about 30 minutes and I still ruined 3.

Still, I have to admit that when I had them all in place, they looked pretty good and I was proud of myself. I gently rapped my knuckle of the corner of the coffee table and felt a nice cushy bounce. I patted myself on the back and went to bed.

The next day when I got home, I ran in to problem number two. I was greeted at the door by the dog, who had something in his mouth. After I wrestled with him and pried his jaws open I found one of the rubber bumpers.

“Ahhhh Leeeeee...”, I whined in a loud voice, “don’t tell me the dog is ripping the bumpers off the table.”
“No,” came a flat, tired response, “Hailee did it.”

My daughter had, with in one hour of encountering these things, figured out how to work her little fingers under them and quickly pop them off. They were squishy and looked like some weird cool soother so she was attracted. When she was tired of inspecting it she chucked it and the dog figured that they were playing fetch so he picked it up.
The little bit of adhesive that was left on the table she quickly pulled off and stuck in her mouth.

I re-attached it but with little hope. Once things like this become un-stuck the first time they become easier and easier to take off.

As I write this, three days later with an ice cold Lakeport Honey Lager in my hand (I broke down and bought a case), she has pulled every bumper off every table and has eaten more tape than I care to think about.

The dog found a couple that we didn’t and chewed them to mush. He probably would have found more but "bouncing them off daddy's head" became something of a game for her so most were easy to track.

I guess I could always go out and buy a couple things of bubble wrap. Not for the furniture of course; there will always be more dangers cropping up, no... I plan to just wrap her in it from head to toe and cut an opening for her nose and mouth.

It should work till she’s about 4 but it will be a nightmare changing her diapers.


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