When Ryan turned 8 months old, we found ourselves quickly having to baby proof the house. It felt (to us) like he had gone from being content with just laying around or rolling a little all day, to practically crawling over night. By 10 months old, he was walking and life as we knew it was changed forever.
Any parent will tell you that "toddlerhood" is filled with excitement, fear and lots of boo-boo's! With Ryan being our first child, we were OVER protective...ok, maybe I was a bit more overprotective than Chris, but we both agreed that we didn't like seeing our baby hurt or in pain.
We spend the majority of our time in the Family Room of our house. This room is located off the kitchen and the garage. We have it carpeted but the floor underneath is made of cement because of it's location with the garage. There is a small step from the kitchen into the Family Room and we also have an entire brick wall with fireplace on the opposite end of the room. So even with all our "proofing" we still had challenges to overcome when it came to keeping Ryan (and now Kara) safe while he played and explored his surroundings.
After many trips to Babies R US and looking at gates in magazines (One Step Ahead is our favorite!), we agreed that the Yard Gate would be the perfect type of gate to use in our Family Room. We were able to bend in into several positions and lock it into a complete circle if we wanted to keep Ryan in one place. I soon started calling the gate (while in it's circular state), THE PIT because that's what it felt like when I would sit in there with him. It didn't take long before Chris and the rest of the family were calling it "the pit" too. The Pit wasn't just an inside gate either, we would take it outside and it allowed Ryan space to explore but it also gave us the peace of mind that he was safe. As Ryan grew, our use of this gate changed as well. We put the extended portion into storage and used the remaining piece to keep Ryan away from the fireplace and TV.
We love, love, LOVE our Yard Gate! Now that our little Kara is on the move, we've had to take the extended portion out from storage and create "the pit" once again. While Ryan was our happy, go-lucky baby and loved being in THE PIT, Kara is the complete opposite. She pretty much hates being locked up and will sometimes cry and cry, and cry until someone "rescues" her. I will admit that there have been times where I've bribed Ryan into climbing into The Pit with Kara so I can wash bottles or clean up without listening to her cry. Which can be a pain too because he isn't always nice to her...and STILL pulls her arms! sigh.
So that's THE PIT story. We highly recommend the Yard Gate to all new and expecting parents...it's worth every penny. :)
And now for your viewing pleasure...
Any parent will tell you that "toddlerhood" is filled with excitement, fear and lots of boo-boo's! With Ryan being our first child, we were OVER protective...ok, maybe I was a bit more overprotective than Chris, but we both agreed that we didn't like seeing our baby hurt or in pain.
We spend the majority of our time in the Family Room of our house. This room is located off the kitchen and the garage. We have it carpeted but the floor underneath is made of cement because of it's location with the garage. There is a small step from the kitchen into the Family Room and we also have an entire brick wall with fireplace on the opposite end of the room. So even with all our "proofing" we still had challenges to overcome when it came to keeping Ryan (and now Kara) safe while he played and explored his surroundings.
After many trips to Babies R US and looking at gates in magazines (One Step Ahead is our favorite!), we agreed that the Yard Gate would be the perfect type of gate to use in our Family Room. We were able to bend in into several positions and lock it into a complete circle if we wanted to keep Ryan in one place. I soon started calling the gate (while in it's circular state), THE PIT because that's what it felt like when I would sit in there with him. It didn't take long before Chris and the rest of the family were calling it "the pit" too. The Pit wasn't just an inside gate either, we would take it outside and it allowed Ryan space to explore but it also gave us the peace of mind that he was safe. As Ryan grew, our use of this gate changed as well. We put the extended portion into storage and used the remaining piece to keep Ryan away from the fireplace and TV.
We love, love, LOVE our Yard Gate! Now that our little Kara is on the move, we've had to take the extended portion out from storage and create "the pit" once again. While Ryan was our happy, go-lucky baby and loved being in THE PIT, Kara is the complete opposite. She pretty much hates being locked up and will sometimes cry and cry, and cry until someone "rescues" her. I will admit that there have been times where I've bribed Ryan into climbing into The Pit with Kara so I can wash bottles or clean up without listening to her cry. Which can be a pain too because he isn't always nice to her...and STILL pulls her arms! sigh.
So that's THE PIT story. We highly recommend the Yard Gate to all new and expecting parents...it's worth every penny. :)
And now for your viewing pleasure...
Ryan and the Gate ~ Summer 2006
Kara and the Gate ~ Spring 2009
...and of course, this post would not be complete without a cute RK video attached to it. Enjoy!
6 comments:
I have to say, that little Ryan has a great singing voice ! He must have inherited that from his talented Mommy :)
I have been thinking about getting gates for our house, but just haven't been able to bring myself into turning our living room into a playpen yet. LOL since I have students and parents over most days of the week, I like to keep it looking presentable. but then I think I could just hide the gates when people come over. Ahhhh. Will is against it. He wants to just train Preston "No". so far he is doing good, but has a very short memory and goes back to the "no" object hours later.
We don't have many places where he can get hurt, we just have lots of stuff we don't want him getting into , like computers, bookshelfs with glass objects (my vase, candle holders, etc.), my music stand, stuff like that.
Ugh. I also feel bad because I feel like all day long all we do is tell him 'No no no don't touch that".
I know we'll eventually get it figured out...hopefully. LOL.
I WISH, we had a house big enough for a pit of our own. UGH! It's so frustrating. Instead I blockade walkways with chairs, and pillows. Our house is just too small for a yard gate. Once our back porch is re-stained we can use it. It's all enclosed with a fence so that will be nice for playing outside in the summer. I am getting so incredibly frustrated with the falling and bonking his head. I can't even begin to tell you.
Aw..the gates LOL. I don't know how those things work too well...haha. We adopted my younger sister when she was exactly a year old. She came home right on her b-day. (Or should I say MY MOM adopted her) LOL JK. We didn't have baby gates for her because I was always here to watch her and I just thought Taryn was the best thing ever so I would be ploaying with her adn keeping her going and outta trouble so we really didn't need the gates. I just didn't let her go up the stairs...well actually she couldn't crawl or move around yet. (Adopted babies take longer to do all of that stuff) So yeah, never had the gates...I don't think she would've liked them anyways.
Your pics are so cute. Ryan and Kara make sucha good match together. I could picture them dancing ... i mean just like having fun. I love the pics! LOL! Some of them were funny/cute.
OMG the video was soooo adorable! Is Ryan 4 years old? He talks so well, his voice is so clear, I was so impressed. (Maybe it's cuz I'm so used to my sister not talking all that smoothly) But he has a natural talent (: YAY RYAN! LOL. Oh and I loved how he said "Bye Kara" at the end...that was so cute.
OK...I think I've left a long enough post...gotta go check those horse blankets! LAter!
-Heather
SUPER CUTE!! I love all the pics! We considered getting a "pit" but decided to get 4 baby gates instead! YIIIIKES!
Love the video too! Ryan is such a great big brother!
Hey Bobbi,
I could have sworn i responded to this post as I blogged about it on my blog ahahaha...and I got here and didn't see anything. Well anyways you know how I feel about the gates...pure genius...Emma is rolling everywhere now. I'm going to put it off a little longer yet I think we'll purchase these when she's crawling.
I emailed you let me know if you didn't get it...or did get it?? Hope you had a HAPPY MOTHER's DAY!!
OK, we have the laugh out loud funny picture of Ryan licking the gate, where but is something similar for Kara?
Maybe she just wanted to do something different and gave us her best squished face instead.
Your children are just too darling.
-Francesca
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