The house’s newest accessory

Little Matthew is not too happy with the houses’ newest accessory.  New gates. 

The combination of four levels of perfectly rock hard marble stairs and one daredevil little 14 month old was a tragedy waiting to happen.  For the last month we’ve constantly been on edge about where Matthew is or who has Matthew.  We’ve blockaded the stairs with moving boxes, and an unreliable gate from Georgia, not quite wide enough to fit the opening.  Meanwhile Matthew has spent all his energy in walking towards the stairs and trying to go ‘down’ while we’re not looking, turning around and sitting on them, smiling, WALKING up them while holding on to the iron rod siding, and giving us a near heart attack.  We even found Luke, trying to be helpful, holding his hand and helping him WALK down.  

We definitely needed some gates… and fast. 

Our German neighbors across the street are fantastic.  So welcoming, so nice.  They speak English pretty well and we are able to communicate great.  I asked her what she does with her toddlers and these awful stairs. (everyone here has three or four levels with these same stairs)  She got so excited and brought me over to her house so I could see her gates.  They are perfect.  It is a spring loaded white canvas that stays rolled up on one side.  After clicking the top, you release the canvas and pull it across and latch it shut.  My older kids can do it but Megan and Luke can’t… which is good.  They are out of the way when I don’t want them up and easy to put up when I want them.  Genius.

Sylvie gave us the popular German kids website ‘JAC-O’ and wrote down what they were called.  Then she helped me set up an account on the website so I could order them.  Instead of sending a confirmation code in an email they wanted to send one through the mail.   A couple days later, while waiting for the code to arrive, Sylvie found out that they were at a local German store for 10 Euro cheaper and came over to give me the details.  Not only that she called the store to reserve four, and looked up the address so we could type it into our GPS.  All I could do is hug her.  We went and got four gates that afternoon.  Two for the main floor and two for our floor (master bedroom, Ryan’s room and the little boys room).  Chris began to install them immediately but soon ran into a problem.  The walls here are made of cement and you need a nice BOSCH Hammer/drill to get the screws in.  Luckily, our neighbors came to the rescue again.  Joe helped Chris put the first one up using his collection of drills and screws and then let us borrow them for as long as we wanted. Thank you neighbors.

Now when we pull the white canvas across Matthew starts to whine and sometimes drop to the ground ready to show us the beginnings of a tantrum.  If I close it and leave him up while I go down then he cries but just because he’s heartbroken.  He points to the gate and says “down” (which also means up) and is one of the few words he says.  Yes, it’s an important word.  He’d rather climb on the stairs than do anything else.  But we’d rather have him safe and these gates are the answer.  Halleluiah.

{Quick tour of the picture:  That’s our front door at the end.  On the left hand side of the rug is a door to our half bath and on the right is our small shoe cabinet.  Right after the rug and second doorway you turn to the left (right in the picture) to our kitchen. Behind that hall door is a little closet.  They don’t really have closets here so that little closet is a big deal.  We keep cleaning supplies, jackets and will have something organized for backpacks soon.  Obviously, that white thing is our gate and the other one on the other stairs is installed but not pulled across at the moment.  And look at all that white tile… just imagine me sweeping and mopping like a crazy woman.}