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Beep Beep!

We have quite a few buttons on appliances that Luke can reach. Most of these have "control locks" which adults can push in order to keep young ones from starting the appliances. They have varying degrees of success.

The oven control lock does not apparently work. The first time Luke found out about the oven buttons was when he pushed the stool up to the oven/microwave wall stack to see what I was doing with the microwave. He leaned against the oven light button, which obligingly beeped and turned on the light, a very gratifying response. He stayed there for the next few minutes happily beeping as I tried in vain to lock the controls. If all else fails, I suppose I could read the manual...

The dryer works slightly better. If you hold down the control lock button for 3 seconds, the controls are indeed locked---except for the "cancel" button. Thus Luke can turn the dryer off, but in order to turn it back on again, I need to hold down the control lock button again.

The dishwasher is a mixed bag. It took a while before we figured out that Luke was actually pushing these buttons: after a few days of not being satisfied with how clean the dishes were getting, I realized that Luke had changed it from "normal" wash to "delicate/china". In order to lock these controls, you push the "control lock" button twice. This locks all the controls...except the control lock button. Before you lock it, all the buttons beep and light up. After you lock it, the only button that beeps is the control lock button, which also has a helpful light so that little fingers know exactly which button to push twice to get the other buttons to beep again. I suppose it is idiot proof, but it's not exactly babyproof.

The washer has the best control lock---it does exactly as advertised, and it turns on by holding down for 3 seconds. The 3 second buttons work well for toddlers since 3 seconds is approximately the same as eternity for them, and Luke would never figure out how to activate that on his own (as opposed to the "push this button twice" kind of activation, which is never a problem for toddlers).

So far he hasn't wanted to turn on the stove. The radio does not have a control lock, and so one morning Luke pushed the chair up to it, turned it on (the power button helpfully lights up when the power is off) and turned the volume all the way up. It definitely woke up his sister, who came running down the stairs to see what is up.

If I were designing a lock, I would definitely make the user hold the button down for 3 seconds to activate it. The light that says the controls are locked should be separated from the button which locks and unlocks the controls, for further obfuscation. Finally, I would make the other buttons still beep even when they are locked. That way Luke feels as though he is doing important work (just like Mama) while not getting in the way of Mama's work, the best of both worlds.

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