Child proofing doesn't have to be ugly

I am sure one of things that many parents dread is the absolute hideousness (yup making it a word) of  child proofing. Putting those weird covers on the door handles, giant air mattresses around your pointy furniture, and gates at every corner that just seek out stubbing your toes and laughing maniacally as you hobble away...or fall down the stairs. 
Every single one of your lovely decorative items has been hoarded away into a cupboard that of course you are unable to get into without a key fob, key pad number and retina scan to open. 
It doesn't have to be like that. Child proofing does not have to be ugly or make your home look like you are crazy. 
We were a bit slack on the whole child proofing thing. We just put some covers on a couple outlets, which now we can't seem to remove (thanks IKEA) without a screwdriver. I wonder what the swedish words for Adult proof are...maybe that is the name of these covers.  Otherwise our child proofing consists of moving the dog's water bowl and putting a couple blockers in the bottom drawers. I am sure when she starts walking around on her own that we will need to put the locks on some other cupboards but until then we will just keep an eye on her. 
One of the pieces of furniture that I was worried about from the get-go was our coffee table.
It is a sharp pointy death trap of corners. We tried putting some of those little corner covers on it, but I think I knocked it off almost every time I stood up so that was not going to work. It also has drawers on the side. That and it looked like our table had weird deformities on it. I thought there had to be a better way right? Off to Pinterest!

Searching....child proofing....really? Why not just get rid of the coffee table if this is the result. 

Hmmm what about buying an ottoman instead....$250?! Shut the front door...no!
For that price I can make my own ottoman....wait..what? I could totally make my own ottoman! I made my own tufted headboard. I could totally do that, right?
Searching....DIY coffee table ottoman....hmmm seems like lots of cutting and gluing and nailing...ain't nobody got time for that.
What if.....I just made a cover for the coffee table and then removed it when she wasn't a hazard to herself anymore? 
Searching....removable coffee table cover....really didn't find anything other than a slip cover, which really wasn't what I was looking for. I needed to add some cushion to the corners. Looks like I get to be a Pinterest Pioneer and be the first. 
I decided that I was going to make a box to lay over the top part of the coffee table and then cover it. 
Here are the steps I took:

First thing is that I measure the coffee table each side and the top so I knew how big I had to get the boards. I planned on getting peg board if I decided to be a masochist and do tufting. I knew that peg board was flimsy that I had to get wood to put in the corners to hold it a bit more stable so that was going to require that I add a few inches to each piece of the wood to compensate and have it still lay over the top of the coffee table. 
Went to Home Depot and found a big sheet of peg board and had the guy cut all the pieces for me there! It was 7 cuts and he didn't even charge me the $.25 per extra cut. So much easier that trying to it myself. Can't even imagine how much time that saved me. I am not a big power tool gal ironically.

My Project Manager in the back was making sure I got all the items on the list.....

Peg Board $13

Wood dowel $3 - cut that at home easily with a hand saw. 

Once I got home I found some screws and a screw driver and started putting it together. 

This really did not need to be perfect at all as the entire thing was going to be covered in foam anyways. And the peg board already had some nice holes for me to work with. I hadn't screwed the top piece on yet so it looks really wonky but once it was all screwed together it was pretty straight. 

I found some zip ties in the garage just to put along the edges to put them together since, like I said before, peg board is pretty flimsy and just needed some stability. 

The second part I did need a bit of help just to get it as smooth as possible. 4 hands were better than 2 for this part. 

I bought 2  Mattress toppers from Wal-mart for about $11 a piece. We stapled each other individually over the frame and took care to make sure the corners were extra squishy. 

Then I bought some quilt batting from Wal-mart as well for about $9 and wrapped that around to make it smooth. We stapled this as well and had to fold it a little bit in the corners. 

Then in typical Heisick fashion we only finished half the project and left it without a cover for about 3 weeks....Inga really loved pulling on the quilt batting. 

My mom is a sewing phenom, so she offered to help make the cover for it rather than just stapling the cover over it to make it more permanent. I don't like permanent....especially with an almost one year old and bulldog. 

She said we would make a slipcover with some elastic with a hem. 

Basically the day ended up being my mom making the whole slip cover and I just watching the babes cruise around. 

We followed the steps for this cover here

After we (mom) did that, I had to put the elastic all the way through the hem. We fitted it over the top and pulled as hard as we could and tied it tight. 

Here is the finished product!

The cover is super lightweight and can easily be pulled up and removed the take off the cover and it is super soft.  Inga won't stop cruising around it. 

The fabric we got was Sunbrella outdoor water repellent fabric so it will hold up nicely. 

All in all, the entire project cost me around $65 and maybe a total of 3 hours to do the entire thing (not including our 3 week procrastination).

Once she is able to walk around and not look like a little drunk human we can remove it if we want....although we both really like it and might not. 

Let me know what you think!

Feeding our kid in public - The Battle rages on

Inga just turned 9 months this past Sunday, so she has been eating solid foods for about 3 months now.
Who knew that feeding your kid had the potential for such disagreement with other parents.

It started out great, just like my previous post had shown, with a great video of her first time eating some banana and just loving it. That continued for a couple weeks. We only had her eat once a day as to not overwhelm her stomach. As you can see from the video it was very telling of what was to come in the next few months. She was pretty meh about the mushed up banana and just wanted the banana itself. She did seem to enjoy holding onto the spoon but that soon turned into wanting the bowl that the puree was in.
Fast forward to now - she ate purees for about 2 weeks, then we just switched and gave her whole food and that seems to be the way that she wants to roll. And that is great! We gave her the tools and the choices and chose correctly. What can I say? She is gifted I guess ha! /sarcasm.
Before we started solid foods, I had wanted to do Baby Led Weaning. I had bought the book and was all prepared, but I was extremely nervous on the possibility of her choking of a whole piece of banana so we decided to be a bit half-ass about it. She pretty much decided for us that that was the way she preferred. I feel like babies need to learn how to chew/mush something before they can swallow it and starting with purees seems a bit back assward.
We have yet to just give her everything that we eat but she does try almost everything at least once whether it is just sucking on it or playing with it in her hands. This seems to be the issue when feeding her out in public. Sometimes when we give her something, we get the hover parents looking at us like,
"OMG she is going to choke. Why would ever give a baby that?"
"Does she ever eat baby food?"
"Is she even eating any of it?"
No she is not going to choke. She might gag, but she isn't dying and will spit it out. No we don't feed her baby food. Have you tried that shit? Hmmm jarred chicken dinner or a chicken drumstick?
Who cares if she is actually eating any of it?
Food is supposed to just be fun and a learning experience until they are one anyways so don't put so much pressure on them to eat.
Some people just have to have an opinion on everything and everyone and because of our parenting style, we probably just need to get over the fact that helicopter parents are going to give us the business.
She does still gag on certain foods, and that can be scary but she is not choking and she has to learn. Like my dad said that you can just go to the court house and get an eating permit lol
Some of Inga's favorite things to eat are:
Orange segments - she can eat about half an orange and her poo smells like oranges haha
Blueberries - she eats lots of blueberries at Grandma's house
Mcvities Digestive crackers - she shares these with the dog every time
Watermelon - these are a new favorite
Tomatoes - She sucks and pulls all the meat and juice out of them like a champ
Cheese - This is one of the dog's favorites haha
What are your little nugget's favorite things to eat? Any suggestions on getting whole grains - since she doesn't really care for oatmeal? Leave comments!

Pets & Babies can go together like Peas & Carrots

Most couples have dogs. Or pets in general. I read an article that said that most couples my age start with dogs as their "first born children". Elsa is definitely our first born. Yes, we had two cats first, but they don't count. Cats can be fairly self reliant so it is just not the same. 

This might not be so much about advice to introducing pets to babies, but rather what we didn't do and how it all played out. 

When I was pregnant, we had plenty of people that seemed concerned about how our dog Elsa or our cats would adjust to having a baby around. I usually just dismissed it as my hormones did not like advice at that time. "Don't tell me how to raise my family, " my hormones would rant. Looking back now with some sanity, I was a maniac in regards to that information. I will declare that I am an animal nut case. I love animals. I would rather spend time hanging out with animals than people so those comments really hit my hormones hard. 

We were told of how a cousin of a friend of a friend had a cat that smothered their baby to death. This usually comes from people that have never owned a cat. Most cats probably would think, "Hmmm a really loud smelly object is coming into the house. I don't want to go by that thing." The idea that a cat would come and lay by the baby to smother is an old wives tale that dates back to the Salem Witch Trials to say that the cat was trying to steal the babies soul. I am happy to say that Inga is soulful and happy when the cats come around. 

I decided to buy a book and read up on introducing your dog to a new baby. Elsa is a bulldog and has a tendency to forget how strong she is and the cats are huge and have a tendency to forget that they weigh 20 pounds. 

The book said to bring home a blanket after she was born and have the dog smell it. Didn't do it. When introducing the dog and the baby, the dog should be on a leash. Didn't do it. The dog should be kept out of the nursery to establish boundaries. Didn't do it. 

Anybody want to buy a book??

One thing we did was that when we bought our pack n' play for the bedroom, we set it up immediately to make sure the cats would become acquainted with it by the time Inga came. Our one cat, Boo, was somewhat interested and jumped in a couple times but after we put in the dreaded CAN O' PENNIES it was done. No more jumping in there. We also left the car seat sitting around the house and after a couple corrections from our other cat, Gus, he no longer tries to lay in there. Not that we thought that he would try to lay in there with her in it, but more so about the hair. 

So let's get to how they have reacted now that she is home. Let's just say that we were SHOCKED by how our little children responded.

Let's start with the middle child, Boo. He is a fairly normal cat. Sweet, snuggly and somewhat cautious. He just weighs about 20 pounds. His reaction to Inga was pure indifference and still is 4 months later. The first couple days that she was home, he just slept downstairs probably thinking that this screaming thing will leave in a couple days. Once he realized that she wasn't going anywhere he started sleeping upstairs again and could care less about her. He may get a sniff here and there but he really doesn't even care. 

Then there is Gus. He has boundary issues to put it lightly. He is the sweetest cat with a heart of gold, but like my Dad says....he is just dumb. He jumps and climbs on everything and tries to race you to whatever room you are going to. And he will trip you to get there first. We were not as concerned about him just because he has been around kids before and he didn't even care when they yanked on his tail. Just like Boo, he is totally indifferent towards her. Even more so than Boo. His demeanor has not changed at all. 

As long as your cat is not an asshole, I think you would be fine with them around. Most cats don't like hanging around loud noises and most will just avoid it based on what we have seen. 

Now let's move on to our first born, Elsa. We had a plethora of opinions regarding Elsa and I am glad to say she put all of them to shame. Some people were concerned that she would snap and bite her face off because she is a bully breed. I don't think we could have asked for a better reaction out of her. Pure love and admiration. All she wants to do is lick her to death, which we don't allow. We let her lick her feet but not her hands and her face. She simply adores her and follows us to whatever room she is in. Have to go change her diaper? Make sure to be aware that Elsa has followed you in her room and is laying down right behind you. She has even made the decision herself that when Inga is in the bed hanging out with us, she will sleep on the floor. We did not train that. It is just a respect thing. Now, I am not sure if this is from her training as a puppy or what but ever since Elsa was a puppy she won't sleep on my side of the bed. Even when I would travel for work, she would not sleep there. As the alpha-female, she respects my space and she has already learned to respect Inga's space. 

In the end, we have the happiest family with lots of animals and they all get along. I think if you raise your dog properly to be low in the pack totem pole, they will have no reaction to another pack member. They know they have no authority so they just let it happen. As soon as Inga can use her hands like a normal person, we will have her feed Elsa by hand as well. This will help with bonding them together and let's Elsa learn that Inga will be a provider for her and not a play toy. 

With cats, we might have just been lucky or else we prepared them properly for when the baby came. Try to setup as much baby furniture as possible before the baby comes so you can allow the cats to become accustomed to it. You don't want to setup the crib the day the baby comes home because the cats will just want to climb all over it. If your cat is not a dick, they should be fine with the baby because the baby smells like you and the cats like you, right?

How did your pets respond to a new baby or comment on what you did to introduce your pets to your baby.