La-La & The Tree

As this is La-La's first Christmas, we were unsure how she would react about a Christmas tree. On Sunday we put the tree up where we always put it (to the left of the fireplace). We hung the lights on the tree, put up the ornaments, and everything was fine. Twenty minutes later, I was washing dishes when Steve yelled to me to look at the tree...La-La had literally climbed up the tree and was sitting in the branches. Then she started batting the ornaments and chewing on the branches.

Steve shooed her off, but a minute later she was back up the tree. This repeated a few times. We finally, sadly, decided we must take the tree down, as it was too unsafe with La-La. I'm surprised the tree didn't fall over with her laying in the branches. The girls were sad, but understood. We took down the ornaments, lights and garland, and put the tree back in the basement storage.

The following day at work I kept thinking about the tree, and how sad it was that the girls wouldn't have a tree during Christmas. At lunch I went to Lowes to buy some cabinet knobs and next to the knobs were baby gates. One in particular caught my eye. It was made of steel, originally $148, and on clearance for $37! I went back to work, read reviews online and saw that it received wonderful reviews. After work I went back to Lowes, bought it, dragged the tree and ornaments upstairs again, and set up the gate. This time I put the tree near the front door, so La-La couldn't jump over the gate from the fireplace.

La-La was perplexed by the gate and circled it for 30 minutes. She could stick her head through the gate, but not her entire body. She became frustrated and meowed loudly. After an hour, though, she was fine. Now she doesn't even go near the tree.