Outsmarted

Why is it that when a toddler and adult go head to head, the toddler always finds a way to outsmart the adult?

The girls have recently figured out that all the "good stuff" in the pantry is on the top shelf. At eye level they see dried beans and milk, wheat, oats, rice and oil. The syrup would be perhaps the most tempting and I'm sure with a bit of ingenuity they could get the lid off, but by just craning the neck upwards there is a wealth of goodies to tempt any child: fruit by the foot, fruit snacks, granola bars, crackers, chips, pudding and candy, including a Costco size bag of M&Ms. So not surprising, it did not take them too long to figure out how to scale the shelves and pull down their preferred treat.

Climbing eight feet off the ground, reaching one handed into a box, and scaling back down was sure to take us back to the orthopod who already had plenty of questions for us. So I made a trip to my local Babies R Us and produced a child lock to Ryan. After nearly an hour of wrestling with the "easy to install" device, Ryan had the lock on the door and we were sure to avoid any more questions.

However, it took Hadley less than one day to figure out the secret to the lock. Hadley shared her new found knowledge with Chloe and the "good stuff" was accessible again.

That night, the girls exhausted from not napping fell asleep around 5:30 p.m. We flipped the lock upside down which restricted any downward movement of the handle. We've got them this time! We assumed they didn't understand the door could be opened by pushing up on the handle.

The next morning the girls were up at 5:00 a.m. I was not. When I pulled myself from bed at ten to six I found them sitting at the table with a box full of Oreos strewn over the table. Breakfast anyone?