Baby-proofing with bungee cords?

Never in a million years would I have put those two terms together in the same sentence.  Enter Ryder. Now that he is strong enough to pull the benches away from the table, he treats them as balance beams or stepping stones to get up onto the table. We will let him climb onto the bench as long as he sits on his bottom, but that only lasts so long because he wants to be able to stand and "dance" on the bench. When we say "Sit down, please", he will sit and smile until he thinks we've forgotten what we just told him to do; he then pops right back up, grinning and bouncing. Since he has no concept of gravity, we have to watch him like a hawk. And let's face it: at the end of the day, it's nice to be able to just sit down while he plays rather than telling him "no" millions of times. Andrew came up with a brilliant solution that didn't involve us taking the benches out of the room completely, since we do like to have somewhere to sit for meal times. He grabbed one of the bungee cords that he keeps in his truck for securing heavy loads and used it to strap the two benches to the base at the center of the table. Voila! Now when Ryder tries to pull out a bench, it moves a little before being tugged away from him. Needless to say he gets frustrated, but if we ignore his whines and screams for a few minutes he gives up and looks for something else to do. Success!