Play-uh-oh

My baby is at that age. The age where absolutely everything, without discrimination, goes into the mouth. I know it's a phase that she'll grow out of, but this time around it's a much trickier situation to handle. With an older sister who is 3, there are definitely small parts around. Toys come with so many pieces these days, it's not easy to keep track of them all and make sure they stay above where the baby can reach them.

     Also, my baby is a sneaky one. Yes, I've found her crawling through the kitchen, over to the cabinets, where she leans down, and reaches under the cabinet to get at whatever is under there that I don't clean. No, I'm sorry; I'm a delinquent mother who doesn't scrub underneath my cabinets. My baby has found me out.

     Now for the most part, we do ok. My toddler is rather possessive, which usually is frustrating, but for this works well. She screams and grabs anytime the baby tries to go for anything that she has deemed her own. So for those situations where I'm not watching as close as I should, or the baby is just faster than any of us expect her to be (this is all the time), my toddler is the 2nd round of defense. And not much gets past a toddler.

     Except for play-doh. How is it that a fresh tub of play-doh plus all the rollers and cutters and squeezers to keep it all in one place and highly entertaining, can still fail? I am the play-doh nazi and I try to pick up every tiny speck of it before the baby can find it, but I still fail. Yes, I have found hot pink play-doh in my baby's diaper... oh well, at least she isn't Gluten-Free. And afterall, if they didn't expect kids to eat it, why do the mention on the packaging that it contains wheat?