I have two year old twins and they are rough and tumble, reckless toddlers. Before they were born I had Brielle, and she has always been such a sweet girly-girl. We also had a foster daughter for 15 months who was equally as easy as Brielle and super sweet too. My boys…they are sweet and they love their mommy. Thank goodness for all the hugs and kisses they give me because they are hard on our house and my stress level! Justin likes to compare them to chimps let loose in the house to destroy. I would have to agree with the comparison. I am sure it is having two- 2 year old boys at the same time, but they sure have created more damage in their two years of life than I could have ever imagined!

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Kitchen chair that Alex broke last week. More expensive to replace than I care to even think about!

With this in mind we have had to do some serious toddler proofing. Not only for the protection of the house and our furnishings, but more so to protect Alex and Charlie from themselves (and one another).

Just before they turned 2 years old they figured out how to climb out of their cribs. It was more like launching themselves over the rail and falling with a loud and scary thump when they landed erratically on the ground. Thank goodness for soft carpeting! After sprinting up the stairs several nights in a row we knew the cribs had to go and it was time for toddler beds. Here is the pic of their cute nursery before the toddler beds moved in:imageAfter they moved into the toddler beds they began knocking over the glider chair, lamp, and ottoman every single night….so we had to remove those times from their room. They were also taking everything out of the changing table and dresser so we decided to remove the changing table.

Then they started doing this during nap time:

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That is when we realized we needed to take toddler proofing to the next level. Thank goodness we had the dresser secured to the wall. My friend Shannon, from high school, asked me several years ago to pray for a couple from her church who recently had their young  child die from pulling a TV off a dresser killing the young boy. That stuck in my mind, so when we moved into our home in Texas we secured the kids’ furniture to their walls. Here is what we used. They are furniture straps: http://amzn.to/1QouWAt

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We had to put furniture drawer straps on the front of the drawers too, so they couldn’t get into the drawers. I got tired of refolding EVERY piece of clothing they owned EVERY SINGLE DAY. Here are the straps we used on the front of the dresser: http://amzn.to/242t363

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Below is a photo of the dresser with the furniture straps in place. Take note that half of the knobs are missing on their dresser. THIS IS THE SECOND SET OF KNOBS I HAVE PUT ON THAT DRESSER. Did I mention they destroy furniture?

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We also discovered that our twins could open their door, shortly after they learned to climb out of their cribs. We have oval shaped knobs, so we couldn’t use the traditional door knob covers used in baby proofing. My friend Leslie, from my Moms of Multiples club who has triplets and another child (4 kids total) told me about the door monkey. This device is great. No need to drill into a door, or damage it in any way. To keep the kids in their room, you simply attach the door monkey up high on the door (out of reach) and it prevents kids from getting out of their room. The neat thing about this device is that it keeps the door open about an inch, so they aren’t “locked in”. If an emergency occurred any adult could easily break through this piece of plastic holding the door in place. I like it because it protects my twins from real danger. Outside their bedroom door is a balcony that looks over our living room. If they could open their door at night I don’t doubt their ability to scale that railing since they could so easily scale their cribs (which had no footholds and our railings do have footholds).

The balcony outside the twin's bedroom.

The balcony outside the twin’s bedroom.

Here are some photos of the door monkey in use at our house:

Here is the Amazon link for the handy device so you can read about its details: http://amzn.to/1SccErL

Alex and Charlie don’t have much in their room now besides the two toddler beds and dresser. All of which are secured to the walls. They do however manage to take the mattresses off their beds on a regular basis. They also manage to take the canvases and artwork off the wall regularly too. Here is a pic of their current cell…I mean room-

Even their baby monitor is plugged in behind the dresser and the device is placed under their dresser beyond their reach. Anything on their dresser ends up on the floor or worse. Did I mention that they have flushed multiple tv remotes and a cordless phone? I wish I was kidding. We do have a camera in their room. It is necessary for their own safety. We have it plugged in through their closet and then mounted outside the top of their closet door inside their bedroom:

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This camera is great. Easy to set up and it linked up to our wireless in minutes. It is called a Nest camera.  Here is the Amazon link: http://amzn.to/1T0wt1v

We have the camera downloaded on our IPads and phones, so we can check on them even when we have someone else caring for them at the house. The camera has infrared and it allows us to talk to them, even when we aren’t home (which I try not to do, as I don’t want to freak out our baby sitters).  Here is the pic I just took of them this evening on the camera, as I was singing to them through the mic feature:

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All that matters at this point is keeping them safe. Especially since they don’t seem to care about their own personal safety. They are wild little boys. They are age 2, what can I expect? But that makes me all the more thankful for the hugs and kisses they give me every day on their own free will. It is a good thing they are so cute too!