September 6 - The Baby Proofer

Ann closed the cabinet, and the baby lock snapped into place. She stirred the bubbling spaghetti sauce and was careful to keep the pan handle turned inward.
Her phone rang and she answered it, keeping an eye on 16-month-old Maddie playing on the floor.
It was Michael, her husband.
How's Maddie? How's your day? How's everything?
Ann stirred the sauce and glanced at Maddie as she answered his questions.
Hey could you check something for me on the calendar really quick? Do we have that thing with the Hancocks on Friday or Saturday?
She cradled the phone in her ear and checked the calendar.
The sauce bubbled on the stove.
This weekend?
Next.
So, next month. She flipped to the next month and the calendar fell off the fridge.
Just then the dog started barking in the next room, causing Ann to drop the phone.
She glanced over again at Maddie, who was still playing, and then reached down and picked up the phone.
Still there?
Yeah.
The dog kept barking.
Barney! Quiet!
She checked the calendar. Flipped the page to the next month. Next weekend. Friday. Next Friday with the Hancocks.
And then she turned around just in time to see Maddie standing on her tiptoes reaching for the saucepan. Somehow she managed to get her hand on the handle and pull it down. It skidded off the stove top, hit the oven handle and turned over in midair, sending the sauce showering all over--
"And pause right there."
Ann's monitor froze on the image of Maddie a split second before the molten hot spaghetti sauce hit.
"OK, Ann," said the voice in her earpiece. "Tell me your mistake."
"Can I take this thing off first?"
"Sure."
Ann pulled her virtual reality gloves off and then flipped the switches on the helmet and took it off, too.
"Better?"
"Much."
"OK. So, tell me what you did wrong."
And then Ann told Sergeant Rex what she thought she'd done wrong and he listened. Then they talked through her mistakes and what she could have done differently and also talked about all the things she had done right. Throughout the discussion, the focus was simple: helping to keep the baby as safe as possible. It was typical of the thousands of discussions that Sergeant Rex Brown had had as a baby safety consultant.
A lengthy and distinguished career as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps had shaped Rex Brown's into the perfect baby proofer. He had a falcon-like eye for detail, tireless vigilance, ironclad discipline, and an uncanny way of seeing a house through a self-destructive baby's eyes. He was the best in the business.
The recently retired Sergeant Rex had been drawn to baby safety after his own son almost choked to death on a toothpick that had fallen on the floor during a Fourth of July barbecue. Shortly after saving the child, Sergeant Rex waged a full out assault on safety hazards in and around their home. He did such a thorough job of baby proofing their house that his wife (half) joked to him that the only way they could have made things safer for their son would have been to put him in a plastic bubble and keep the bubble in a room lined with pillows. Although Sergeant Rex didn't see the humor in his wife's comments, he was satisfied with the work he had done.
So much so that soon he was volunteering to serve as a baby safety consultant/baby proofer for other expectant families in their neighborhood, and quickly developing a reputation as the most thorough baby proofer and most knowledgeable baby safety expert in the tri-state area.
By the end of the year, he had founded his own company: Sergeant Rex's Baby Proofing and Baby Safety Boot Camp.
Stone-faced but kind, Sergeant Rex tried to make couples feel comfortable with the baby proofing process while also making sure they understood the gravity of the situation. His sessions usually skewed more toward the stern and focused than the warm and fuzzy. In fact, in the early days of his career, many an expectant mother (and at least two fathers) were reduced to tears after he walked quietly from room to room in the client's home and shaking his head occasionally before saying any one of the following:
Your baby would stand a better chance of survival in the slums of Calcutta than in this room.
However much you got saved up for college should make a good down payment on your kid's funeral.
If this is what you call safe, I'd say save yourself the trouble and get an abortion. Baby Superman couldn't survive this deathtrap, much less your child.
Your baby is going to do everything in his power to kill himself. Don't you think you should at least make it a little challenging for him?
Over time, his wife was able to get him to soften his approach. The terror tactics get people's attention, but they also shut them down. You have to give more positive reinforcement, she said. And gradually he did.
But his tough guy image was impossible to shake. He had a linebacker's build, the same crew cut from his days as a Marine, and an intimidating Batman-like utility belt with innumerable gadgets, gauges, and tools to help him do his job.
Although his no-nonsense demeanor didn't exactly help people relax, the work he excelled at did. After Sergeant Rex had baby proofed a house, the place was secure.
Sergeant Rex was both high-tech and low-tech. He had wands that beeped, sensors that hummed, and handheld electronic devices that were straight out of Star Trek. But he also crawled on the floors, climbed on the walls, and touched, shook, jostled, checked, pushed, pulled, moved, removed, and lifted every thing in every room.
And then he gave his report along with his recommendations.
And then he baby proofed the site and talked the parents through what he had done.
And then he tested everything twice.
And when he was finished, the place was safe, and the parents knew it.
As his business grew, he hired other former Marines to help run his baby safety boot camps, which were weekend sessions where expectant couples spent two days and two nights receiving a master's course in baby safety, emergency training, simulation drills, and hands on practice at the state-of-the-art baby safety facility he built on the outskirts of his horse farm.
His motto in everything was: Be thorough. You may not remember all the ways you baby proofed your house. But you'll never forget the one way you didn't.
It was a motto that continues to serve him and his clients well. More than 20 years in the baby safety business, and his record is spotless.