our little bird is into everything now, and he truly seems happiest when he is stair-climbing (if only this were true for the rest of us). the problem is that when the monkey went through this stage, i accidentally put a large hole in the wall when i was trying to install a baby gate.

we live in a different house now, but the situation is still the same: climbing baby, sheet rock on one side, iron rail on the other. we had a very fancy retractable contraption professionally installed at the top of the stairs when we moved into our house but repeating this elaborate scheme seems so silly when this works just as well:

yes, that is one of the monkey’s outgrown shoes that is ever-so-strategically used to keep the ladder from rattling around. 

our whole family, including the 3-year-old, has grown quite accustomed to climbing over this ladder no less than 30 times a day when we want to go up or down the stairs.

since this was the brainchild of my husband, i’m going to put it to you this way. the makeshift baby gate is

a) tragic

b) genius

c) all of the above

i pick c.

what are the makeshift fixtures in your life?