Wow, it makes ice?! Great, but is it babyproof?

One of myriad experiences that no one warned us about with regard to new parenting was babyproofing. I'll admit I thought it was a gate or two in a doorway and some of those little plastic outlet thingies. Ten months and countless trips to Babies R Us later, I've learned that it's garbage can locks and cabinet locks and oven locks and TOILET locks(!), in addition to the $60 gate, the $75 gate, and the $110 gate, all of which you have to jury-rig because nobody's doorways are actually square or the size the gates fit.

But the one that floors me, that I never saw coming, and that, God willing, will be the biggest financial outlay in babyproofing history, is the new refrigerator. Oh, there's nothing wrong with the one we have. Nothing except it was sold by the now-defunct Montgomery Ward, ergo no replacement parts exist, and the geniuses we bought the house from broke the grill at the bottom. As a result we've always had a rainbow of wires adorning the otherwise dead space between the floor and freezer door. An eyesore, sure, and one heck of a catch-all for cat hair, but that was the extent of it. And then, at 7 months, Caitrin became mobile and apparently began her apprenticeship as the Maytag repair girl. Mind you there are toys three feet deep as far as the eye can see all over our house, but my little Inspector Gadget wants those fridge wires. I thought I was brilliant when I covered them with electrical tape, but apparently in Babyland this makes them look even more like a teething toy.

So we weighed our options and quickly realized we had but one: replace the fridge or might as well head for the emergency room now. Oh well, an expensive venture but pretty simple. Unless the previous homeowners, when faced with having to replace what I'm sure was the original fridge with the current one, CUT INTO THE WALL instead of ordering one that fit the hole that was there. Oh, yeah, it's a bloody mess and it results in us having a maximum of 67.5" in which to fit a new one. One major problem: all the fridge manufacturers got together after Harry the Handyman turned the wall into Swiss cheese, and decided never again to make a model fit the carefully planned cuts he made. We're going to lose at least 2 cubic feet and have a gap between where the countertop ends and the fridge begins, because we've gotta shove the newbie into the "custom" notch in the adjacent wall.

We thought we had bitten the bullet and put this mess behind us on Sunday. After church we headed to Sears with the measurements we'd taken and made a choice between the 2 models that would've fit. Installation was supposed to be Monday. And then we got home and Sean measured again, and realized that it wouldn't fit after all...too tall. So we're back to square one, with very few options. But hey, what would life be if not convoluted?

I gotta run, Caitrin's napping and I've got shelves to put up. This also falls under the umbrella of babyproofing, did you know that?