As the title suggests, we’ve made a huge breakthrough this week. After several weeks of trial and error, my daughter has finally figured out how to crawl! Learning wasn’t always easy with her; she tried the butt wiggle, the caterpillar, and the frog launch even though none of them worked. But no sooner have we learned to crawl then we’ve moved onto running. Yes, the little one who never sits still is now trying to pull herself up into the standing position and my house has never looked more dangerous.

From the time when she first propped herself up over the December holiday season to now, my daughter has gone from struggling to move to speed demon. In all honesty, I have no clue how she does it either! One second I’m looking at her while she plays with her toys then I’m distracted by something for a few seconds and when I look back, she’s halfway across the room going after the cat. While I’m excited that my little girl is learning to get around on her own (and no longer requires being carried everywhere), my home has now transformed into a house of death.

The hard edge of the coffee table? Head splicer.

Wobbly Chair? Baby Crusher.

Electronic Wires? Electric Death Trap.

Power Outlets? X(

Now I’m sure there is a point in every parents life when they realize for the first time that the safe, secure home they once had is now a disaster waiting to happen. The following is a list of items one should check over when working on keeping your child safe in your home (compiled from personal experience, ParentHood.com, iVillage)

• Put outlet covers on all power outlets in your home including ones up high.
• Put coins, rubber bands, pencils, and any small objects away. If it’s small enough to fit down a toilet paper cardboard tube, it’s dangerous.
• Get covers for pointed edges on coffee tables, stools and book shelves (several for sale here)
• Position TVs, stereos, DVD players and video consoles away from small hands so babies don’t grab wires and pull devices onto themselves.
• Bolt down, tie up and secure any objects that are tall and could be pulled over onto your child such as book shelves, dresser drawers, entertainment centers and lamps (yes, lamps, especially ground ones).
• Make people take off their shoes when entering your home to reduce random debris on the ground.
• Move house hold cleaners, cat litter, detergent and anything dangerous that you keep under the sink to some place high. I know this sucks for shorter people, but that’s why society invented these.
• Remove poor quality fridge magnets, as they could fall off and into your babies reach.
• And if all else fails, crawl around your house and see what you can get into. Chances are that if you can reach it then your baby will too.

Whew, what a scary list. Hopefully you don’t have to do this all in one weekend because that would be a real pain. Once you’ve completed this list, you can breath a little bit easier knowing that your child isn’t going to hurt themselves as easily as before. But as parents, lets be honest here, your child will hurt themselves and they will cry about it, just make sure you take lots of embarrassing pictures of it to share with them when they’re teenagers.

So, did I miss something on my list? Something so important (or not), that it could spell life or death for a child? Well for heavens sake, don’t keep it to yourself! Share your thoughts in the comments below.