These “baby-proofing” products are real rip-offs, at least in my view.  I put my foot down and refused to pay the exorbitant prices they were asking for “baby gates” that are supposedly necessary to keep the kiddies from falling down (or climbing up???) the stairs.  I tried to explain that about a bazillion generations of kids were successfully raised without such items, but “grandma” would hear none of it and threatened to put her foot down on top of mine.  So, to prove my point (that they were rip-offs) I headed to the hardware store a few nights ago and spent about $30 on materials to custom build TWO of the darned things.

And I did it, too, and they turned out quite nice.  Now I must admit that it took me three nights, a total of about 15 hours, but any handyman who can work more than about 15 minutes without a long break could easily have done it in three hours or less.  (I know that I could back when I was young and healthy.)

Of course that does not count the time required to remove the barbed-wire from the top.  Dawn insisted that I take that off.  I tried to explain that it would toughen the kids up while at the same time teaching them some valuable “life lessons”, but she wasn’t buying any of that.

No wonder today’s kids aren’t as tough as we were!!!