A couple weeks ago the New York Times ran an article about wealthy New Yorkers trying to come to terms with raising small children in their very stylish homes. If we had lots of money and could afford really nice furniture, maybe I would have had a different reaction to the article.
I've never wanted to live in a house resembling a toy store decimated by a tornado, and I also don't want to be one of those parents who "hovers" for fear of my child scratching himself or getting a bump on the head. But I found the attitudes of the people in the article a little ridiculous. It seemed as though style was more important than helping ensure their children's safety for a few years, or even that the two had to be mutually exclusive.
Now that Aldus is fully mobile, crawling and cruising around the furniture, we did our first serious babyproofing last weekend. We took the big bookshelf, books and DVDs out of the living room...
...and swapped it with the bookshelf that was in the bedroom. 
(We still need to attach some sort of backing so that he can't push all his toys out the back or crawl through to the computer cables.)
I sort of miss having all the books and DVDs in the living room. But it's nice to have a designated place for Aldus's toys where he can still get to them. And I'm not constantly putting dozens of books back on the shelf after he's systematically pulled them all off. The fact that he won't be able to pull this bookshelf over on top of himself is probably good, too. ;)
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