The Old In/Out

For several weeks now Baby M has been very big on taking things OUT-- blocks out of the wagon, pajamas out of the drawer, Tupperware out of the cupboard. Lately however, he has gotten very keen on putting things IN. Of course, he has not really mastered the concept of putting things back IN to the place that they came OUT of. Hence, I am constantly finding blocks with my dish towels, remote controls in the potted plants and pacifiers in the mail slot. Occasionally he does seem to make a connection between an object and where it belongs, like the time he started throwing the stack of clean diapers into his diaper pail or the time he took my dirty socks out of the hamper and put them into the basket of clean laundry waiting to be folded. He didn't quite get it right, but I had to give him an A for effort.

In my multitude of parenting books, I read that constantly restricting babies from exploring would result in fearful children and that obsessively tidying up after your child could cause low self-esteem. I think the idea was that if your baby spends all this time carefully distributing his toys around his room, it is disrespectful to sweep them all back into the toy chest in one fell swoop; you should admire his work. Since I'm the type of person who has a hard time asking for extra ketchup packets, I want to do all I can to raise a confident child. Although sometimes I have to wonder if I have taken this idea of "letting babies explore" a little too far. As part of my baby proofing efforts I consolidated all of the dangerous materials into a few cupboards so now Baby M pretty much has the run of the house. What this means is that by the end of the day my kitchen floor is covered in Tupperware, the living room is strewn with magazines and the bedrooms look like Mervyn's after a post-holiday sale. What do you think, will Baby M be doomed to a pusillanimous life if he doesn't get to throw old newspapers all over the floor?