Caging the house

I thought it would be fine to just have one kid proofed room and just keep the kids in there, but, and I'm sure this will come as no shock, I think they're getting bored in there and we do need to be able to let them explore other parts of the house.

K has had a rough work schedule so we haven't done a whole lot of kid proofing.  I'm doing my best to kid proof small sections at a time while they nap, but I'm not getting very far.  One of the major concerns is keeping the girls out of the cats stuff.  For some of the cats, we can just put their food up high, give them a means to climb up and it's all good.  But one of our cats is diabetic and old, she can't really climb at all so we need to keep all the stuff I want to keep the girls out of accessible to her.  It's proving to be a challenge.

Basically we're opting to just turn most of the rooms into big cages with all of the questionable stuff out of reach along the sides of the walls.

We're doing this in stages.  Right now, only Teeny Tiny is truly mobile, Middie Biddie is still slowly scooting backwards so we can kind of aim her the direction we don't mind her going.  We're doing our best to make things more difficult to get to rather than make things impossible.  I'm sure we'll go for impossible once they are both up and running but it's not necessary just yet.  As long as I can buy myself a few seconds to grab a kid that's heading for bad things before she gets there, that's good enough.

I'm liking this set of playard gates.

It's pretty easy to just set up a few panels as little walls and to leave the panel at the end free standing so it can be used as a gate.  It pivots on it's connection spot well.

Here's where we blocked off the cat food, fountain, a big wad of cables and outlets, and all the TV stuff.  There's an opening to allow the cats through at the moment but I've ordered another set of these gates so we'll be extending them to block off the big room (that's currently where we throw everything we don't know what to do with) as well as the kitchen.  When the girls are asleep, I'll be able to open up a portion to let the cats through.  Maybe I'll just put a step or two by the couch so the cats can get up on the couch and jump down on the other side of the fence.  Haven't quite figured that out yet.  Hell, we might just put all of the cats stuff in our bedroom so the old cat never has to come out at all.  

In order to keep these in place when they aren't enclosed and thus self supporting, I've employed the use of cable keepers and zip ties.  To hold one end against the wall, and the other end secured to the floor.

We haven't yet redone the floor in our main room so I don't mind putting nails into the carpet for now.  When we redo the floor, we'll be starting at the other end of the house and a seam will run right about where the gate is, so I'm thinking that when we do get there, it might be worthwhile to sacrifice one of the laminate boards to keep everything secure.  In a year or two when the gates are no longer needed, it should only take a few minutes to pull up the boards and replace them since the damaged boards will be near the end of the room.  

We do need to get a move on redoing the floors since I would like to have people over for the girls first birthday in about 6 weeks.  I'd really like to have the cat stink minimized before we invite everyone over.  It's difficult because we have to start at the section just outside the nursery door.  We can't really do that while they're napping because of the noise, and K has been exhausted when he comes home so it hasn't been a priority when we're both home and they're awake.  I've also ordered a couple of sets of alphabet mats so once the floors are done, the girls will have some traction as they try to move around.  An extra layer of padding can't be bad either.

Next week is our anniversary/birthdays, a week that K always takes off work for celebrations, so I'm hoping we can buckle down and get it done then.  Why does our vacation week always turn into "work our asses off getting stuff done around the house" week?

Anyway, the girls are doing well in the playroom.  I've found that they enjoy it more when there are only a few toys to find and play with.  When there's too many, they get overloaded and don't enjoy any of them.