Trigger, I cannot find the new trigger icon, sorry. Very sad, depressing story.





There is a gofundme for the funeral for a toddler. I was unable to read the whole thing because it made me sick to my stomach. Sometime between 10:00 pm and 4:00 a 4 year old and her younger sister went outside to play as their parents slept. The 4 year old was unable to convince the toddler (two I believe) to come back in the house. The mother found the baby frozen the next morning.

My daughter is a young mother. She specializes in child psychology and she was disgusted by the story. How did the parents not hear the child crying; so many questions. BUT…

The day after I gave birth to my twins, my husband woke up before 6 am to find our precousious 2 ½ year old gone (the very same young mother). Luckily he was able to find her. We lived in a bad place, the gangs were moving in at a rapid rate and the once sleepy town just didn’t know how to deal with it, law enforcement included. My children were not permitted to even go outside to play in our fenced in back yard unless there was an adult right on top of them. Then I realized that even an adult cannot protect you from a stray bullet in drive by then my children were not permitted outside at all and we moved back to our home town.

We did not realize that a 2 year old knew how to unlock the handle lock let alone the dead bolt. So we installed a safety chain. As my husband was putting up the chain I mentioned that it needed to be higher. Our daughter said “yeah, I can stand on the table and reach that.” She was two. So my husband put the safety chain almost to the top of the door and said to her “let’s see you reach that.” She responded “fine! I’ll just go out the patio door.” Did I mention that she was two?

Her son is 11 months old. He is beautiful, charming, too clever and freakishly strong. Yesterday he picked up a six pack of 20 oz bottles of Mountain Dew out of the pantry and was carrying, yes I said carrying it, around. He watches and mimics. He’s been trying very hard to figure out how to open her patio door for the last month. He’s about a half inch too short right now. I was just saying to my husband a week ago that he’ll be able to open it before he’s a year old, then what are we going to do? He already knows how to pull the safety slider pole out.

So how do you child proof a sliding door? Is there some form of after market alarm that can be installed? I know my brother has to have them on his doors because of the pool in his back yard, but the house was built with them. I know I’m a worrier, but why hasn’t this been an issue on a greater scale?