The Gates of Hell

On Saturday I was a crazed mom. The one you look at and avoid. I was in the gate aisle of Babies Suck (my new name for Babies R Us, besides I can't write the stupid backwards R). I was ripping open boxes, sitting on the floor, reading instructions and inspecting hardware. I was my second trip in two days. I called Seth and asked once again for measurements. Here's where I should mention that I later made yet another trip because the one stupid box I didn't open there in the store had its hardware missing. Lovely.

Back to Babies Suck. Why, I wondered, are all of the babies pictured on the boxes old enough for high school? OK, maybe that's a bit much, but they are not 10 months old like my little monkey who wants to crawl and climb onto everything. They're big. This one had a kid with clean, pressed khakis on who stood as tall as the 36-inch-high gate with combed hair and a clean Polo shirt taking a sippy cup from his Mommy, who also had clean clothes, nice shoes and shirt tucked in. Oh, and their house was clean.

This is what Jasper looked like this morning, trapped in the zoo, as Seth called it.


His hair is a mess. He's on outfit No.2 of the morning because his diaper leaked overnight. His diaper leaked because I cannot keep him still long enough to get a good fit around his hips (remember the climbing and crawling comment?). His nose is snotty. He's got a yellowing bruise on his right cheek thanks to a bath-time incident (remember the climbing and crawling comment?). When I step through the gate, leaving him momentarily, he cries. This is the picture I want to see on the damn baby gate box. Or maybe there should be one of Mom and Dad looking really angry while installing the gate. Or maybe one of Mom drinking a glass of wine while baby cries at the gate. Oh wait, what about one where Mom, holding baby, looks frustrated operating the "One-handed" handle.

After all of this I remember that the gates were intended to bring a little relief. Maybe now I can cook dinner without a thousand interruptions to keep Jasper from going to the stairs. Or I can let him crawl out of his room into the hall just as he did this morning. The gates help create a safe place for him to play. Or cry.