Baby-Proofing Our House

One of the things I'm most terrified about in becoming a parent is baby-proofing our house. For 8 years, our home has looked exactly how we've wanted it to look. I'm afraid those days are almost over.

I'm guessing - because I'm a smart one - that I'll need to remove the wine bottles from our rack, put latches on certain doors, secure our cleaning supplies, do something about our fireplace grate, and make sure certain bookshelves & DVD stands are secure so they don't fall on our child. I'm gonna need some mommies to help me out with this one, because I'm sure I've forgotten a hundred things besides the above.

I remember at one of my bridal showers 8 years ago opening some gifts and going "that's so cool! What is it?" I fear I'm in the same boat with imminent mommyhood. I laugh at myself. It's not like I'm clueless about this stuff, but I've just never had a child living in my home 24/7 for more than, like, a few hours. You can laugh at me, too, just not too hard.

I'm pretty committed to not having "stuff" take over our house, though. In Brian's words, "it's just a baby...how much stuff do they really need?" I know moms in Africa do it on far less than their American counterparts. I hope to be like an African momma in this respect. But I do want cool baby stuff. :)

This is only the beginning of having our life rocked, but I'm not looking forward to the baby-proofing part. Other parts, absolutely. This part, not so much.