Cheap peace of mind

Childproofing.

I've never been a huge child proofer. I mean, I have most of our outlets plugged (but Jordan knows how to pull out the caps and put them back in) and of course I have any chemicals put up in high cupboards, but I never went to the extreme that a lot of parents do. I want my kids to be safe, but there should also be a little live and learn. I never, for example, got rid of my house plants (no poisonous ones) because I wanted my kids to learn to stay out of them. That meant, unfortunately, that each of them got a handful of cactus pickers at one time or another, but that's living and learning.

Jordan scares me, though. For one thing, he's a climber.

But his most recent trick has given me a number of mini heart attacks lately.

He escapes.

Seriously, I turn my back for two seconds and he's GONE. Out the front door, across the neighborhood, GONE. Locks don't baffle him. Barricading the door with a table? Minor obstacle. And he's fearless, and knows no boundaries. He will go into a neighbor's garage or house, out into the road, through the woods, into the swamp, wherever. No limits. Once last week I found him in the front seat of my car, pretending to drive.

I can see it now, my disheveled, tearstained face on the news... "I didn't even know he'd gotten out..."

Scary.

And he's FAST.

When Logan was this age, I used hook-and-eye closures on our screen doors at the old house. It worked well. However, we don't have screens here and there is fancy wooden trim around the front door, which would make using a hook difficult, and also it would permanently damage the wood.

My friend Eva told me she'd seen a door alarm at the dollar store. Well, I thought, it's only a buck. I didn't expect much, but I went to the store, found them, and bought the last two they had.

It looks like this







You simply peel and stick to the door and frame, switch it on and then when the door is opened, a really annoying alarm sounds.

So far, it works well. I have ample notice when Jordan makes a break for it. It's exactly what I needed, really. I love that you can turn it off, too. I just have to remember to do so. I set it off at 5 o'clock this morning when I left for the gym.

Jordan thinks it's hilarious to set it off, but so far, he hasn't been opening the door JUST to set it off. He just laughs when he happens to do so.

Here's Jordan, demonstrating how it works:



Anyway, I got it at Dollar Tree for a buck and it is called IntrudAlert, and I can say it does exactly what it's supposed to do. It might even make me feel a bit safer if Hubby's on a business trip.

Dollar Tree and IntrudAlert don't know me, didn't solicit this review, and I gained nothing from them to write this. It's just me sharing a bit of valuable info with other moms!