Monday, July 07, 2008

It's Not My Business...


I am thinking of starting a business with my eight month old son, Caleb, as my business partner.

Caleb has, in the past two weeks, gotten really, really good at crawling, and at sitting up, and he can pull himself into a standing position if he has something to hold on to.

So, now, he has to be watched every single second that he is not in his crib, or his playpen. (And if he's awake in his crib, you had better go and get him, or he will try to climb out.)

He is fascinated by electrical cords, dirty shoes, the dog, dust balls from the floor, week-old cheerios from under Mommy's chair, books on the bookshelf, half-empty soda cups, the drapes, the trash can, computer keyboards... Basically anything that he can destroy, that can hurt him, or is too nasty for him to put into his mouth, and can be hidden in some obscure place where his Mom and I cannot find it.

The geniuses who built our house put an electrical outlet in the middle of the living room floor, and cleverly hid it underneath an X cut in the carpet. His Mommy plugs her laptop into it so that she can work in the living room, and watch him at the same time.

So, most of her day is spent watching him dig in the hole in the carpet, and taking the laptop cord away from him.

He goes after it like a robot.

So here is my business idea...

For a small fee, I will come and child-proof your house.

It should be easy... All I have to do is put Caleb on the floor, and within twenty minutes, he will show me every single thing in the whole house that a baby shouldn't have.

Then all that has to be done is remove all of the furniture, and place everything in the house on shelves at least eight feet from the floor.

Then, we nail all of the cabinet doors shut with twenty-penny nails, turn the electricity off from all of the wall outlets at the breaker box, and hire a maid to vacuum the whole house all day every day.

Then, your house will be child proof. (Mostly.)

But before I start this business, I need to have a lawyer or two to draw up a seventy-two page waiver releasing me from any liability if your baby still figures out how to hurt himself after we have child-proofed your house...

Hhmmn... Maybe this idea still needs a little work...

2 comments:

Mark said...

Babies have ten foot arms and an incredible instinct for finding things that are dangerous.

tugboatcapn said...

They certainly do.

And mine will hurt himself, and not tell anybody.

He will show up with a bruise, or a scratch, or a scuff, and we won't know how, where, or when he did it.

It makes it really hard to remove whatever risk he encountered.

And he is watched VERY closely...