Natural Disaster

So yes, we've lived in our new house for about 7 months now. But no, DM hadn't gotten around to putting the cabinet latches- until yesterday. I consider myself to be a DIY kind of girl, but I also know it would give DM an anxiety attack if he had to imagine letting me loose in the house with a power tool- and he is the one who uses a drill on a daily basis.

Remember LM started walking about a month ago? She is now running. Not fair. I've started calling her "Hurricane Little Mouse" because she leaves a disaster everywhere she goes. One of her most favorite games is "go in the cabinet and take everything out and leave it all throughout the house." I already can't keep up with the housework, so an additional 2 hours every day worth of putting away is just too much. She has three *most* favorite places to ransack (even though nothing seems to be off limits)- the "sippy cup drawer" in the kitchen, the cabinet under the sink in my bathroom and the second drawer from the top in the same bathroom.

I hope it's obvious that she takes the sippy cups out of the sippy cup drawer. Sometimes it's cute, because she'll waddle over to the refrigerator and hold it up, as if she could use the water dispenser herself. Poor kid, she's only 2' too short. Once she figures out she's actually a midget, she tucks that cup under her arm like a football, wanders into another room and deposits said cup somewhere. Repeat until the drawer is empty. (And all this happens in less than a minute, which is why I am powerless to stop her.)

TMI warning: if you are male, this may be a little too much for you. Feel free to scroll down to the next paragraph. For my faithful readers, here goes. I keep my tampons in this huge plastic container in the cabinet under my bathroom sink. For some reason, only known to LM, she loves to grab one in each hand and she comes tearing out of the bathroom waving them like flags, laughing hysterically. (And I will never know why she only picks the green ones. She also has her choice of yellow and pink.)

As for the drawer, it's been designated for DM, so it contains whatever it is that men put in their bathroom drawers. For her, it's like the lottery because she can't see what she's grabbing because she's so short. Most of the time it's his brush, but yesterday when she came running out of the bathroom carrying an uncovered disposable razor, I knew it was time to childproof.

I think I've solved the bathroom dilemma by keeping my bedroom door shut all the time. DM went crazy putting those little latches on the kitchen cabinets. When he finished, we set her down in front of the sippy cup drawer and watched with baited breath...

Giddy, she cannot believe we are encouraging her to open the drawer. Cautiously, she pulls. And pulls again. It only opens 2 inches. She gives DM a curious look and shuts the drawer. She slowly turns towards him, throws out both of her hands and lets out a squawk, as if to say, "What gives, people?"

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she discovers a new favorite place to destroy, but until then, it'll be so nice opening that drawer and actually finding cups in there.