To be free

Even babies don't like people encroaching on their freedom. Last week, I put up a safety gate between the living room and the kitchen. Naomi immediately came up and studied the gate, knocking on it and staring at it, trying to figure out how she could get through. It kept her out of the kitchen--for a while. But the sides of the gate were poorly constructed and the next day she knocked and knocked until she knocked it down. She crawled right in despite my earnest efforts to keep her out. There's really nothing for her to play with in there and the kitchen floor is one place that I'm never really sure is clean. So that gate got taken back to the store. But we haven't gotten a new one.

A few days later, I tried to "trap" her in her room. She seems fascinated with an old floor vent in the hallway. Again, I do not know what is so fascinating about it, especially when she has dozens of colorful, musical toys in her room. The old vent does nothing. It's old, dusty and has holes that I seem no point in her playing with. So I tried to keep her playing in her room by putting two ottomans in the doorway. She waits until I go a few yards away to the bathroom, then comes up and bangs on the ottomans trying to get out. She was playing nicely until she felt her freedom disappear from the room.  She got so flustered by the trappings that I had to pick her up and just remove the ottomans. ... I know why the caged bird sings...