The Bub in the Belly

Over the weekend, I had a few messages come through on my whatsapp groups on children getting their hands stuck in elevator doors. Scary stuff.

Our littles are quite good in the elevators. The only mischief they get up to is to squabble over who gets to press the buttons. The scariest thing that has ever happened is that babydoll once ran ahead into the lift on her own (so that she could get to press the buttons) and the doors closed, sending her alone to the ground floor. This was at our condo. Normally she would have been able to open the door on her own but not in our condo's elevator, because the open/close buttons are too high for her. 

We weren't very alarmed, to be honest, because this happened in a "controlled space" - our condo - and we could predict what would happen. I was sure that she went to the ground floor because she would have pressed "1" and, once she reached the ground floor, she would not have been able to exit the elevator lobby because she would need an access card to do so. She also would not have wanted to - she'd probably either stay in the elevator or come out on the ground floor and wait for us. The only variable was if anyone got into the elevator in between so I raced down to the ground floor via the stairs while Richard followed in the elevator, checking every floor. 

I found babydoll on the ground floor, outside the elevator, which had gone up to ferry Richard and Ryan. She was in tears, yelling at the elevator and pounding on its doors. I can honestly say that it was not a typical scenario for us; we are usually careful about elevators and the children usually do wait for us. Ryan, especially, will not even press the button for the elevator to come up to our floor unless everyone is together, waiting in front of the elevator. Also, this would never have happened outside our home - it was the familiarity of the scene that encouraged babydoll to rush into the lift.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. I wanted to share something that we do when the kids are inside the elevator to keep their hands safe and to keep them from touching stuff. So, if they are in a crowded elevator, I sometimes ask them to put "fingers on noses". This helps them to keep their hands to themselves, away from people and certainly, out of danger. This works when you want to shut the car door too! 

Last weekend, Richard came up with a game that works to the same effect. He got them to strike a funny pose, and to hold the pose till the doors open again (it was just us in the lift). So here you see the two of them, vogue-ing away! He was playing the game with Ryan at first, but on the second time around, babydoll got right into it as well. It was really funny!