Important Safety Tip: Attach your child's dresser to the wall

The twins tried to kill themselves this evening.

It's true.

One month before they turn 2 years old, they tried to off themselves via their dresser. This dresser:

Yeah, it looks innocent, doesn't it?!

Except that it's not that clean anymore and has stuff all over the top, like that trashcan that you see to the right in the photo. Babies like smelly trash, as it turns out. It also has other things sitting on it like wipes, creams, possibly dirty/clean clothing and sneakers. Babies like to wander off with their shoes, you see, and then when it's time to go out? The Great Shoe Hunt begins.

Oh and all of the handles have been removed from the bottom four drawers because short people kept trying to get into the drawers and fling baby clothes all over the place. You know, that's not nearly as much fun to clean up every 30 minutes as you might think it is. Oh, and they'd try smashing each other's fingers in the drawers, just for fun. So off went the handles.

The one thing we didn't do? We didn't attach it to the wall.

Why?

Because the entire time Caitlin was small, she never once tried to climb her dresser. Her dresser which is skinnier and taller and more top heavy than the twins. The dresser from which we never removed the handles. Apparently we thought that for SOME REASON the twins wouldn't really think about climbing theirs, either. Especially since they couldn't really get the drawers open without handles. (You can see where this is going, can't you?)

Tonight, while I was downstairs washing dishes and cleaning up the Dinner Blast Zone, Eric was upstairs doing laundry, Caitlin was off doing Caitlin things and the twins were in their room. Safe.

We thought.

Then there was the loud rumbling crashing noise, the sound of babies crying and Eric yelling for me. I dropped the sponge as soon as I heard the loud rumbling and crying and sprinted up the stairs.

I haven't learned to teleport yet, but I'm still working on it.

I leapt into the room to find Eric straining to hold up the dresser. All 6 drawers were open and the twins were laying at its base, crying and scared. I grabbed the other end and started shoving the drawers back in and pushing it back upright. Clearly, they decided that tonight was the night to try to climb Mt. Dresser and were bloody lucky that upon tipping over, the drawers themselves stopped the dresser from falling on them both and crushing them.

That dresser is not light. It is completely full, as well. They could have been killed.

We were lucky.

So fucking lucky that we were both home and that one of us was right there, next door to their room. Incredibly lucky that the drawers stopped it from falling further and that neither one was hurt.

You never know what might happen to your children. You can't be with them every single second of the day. And, let's face it, you'd like them to be safe in their own rooms. First thing tomorrow, Eric is going to install wall anchors.

If you haven't already done so, please go out and get some anchors for your children's dressers and bookshelves (and anything else heavy you think they may consider climbing). YOU may not be so lucky.

Don't let your child become a statistic.