One Step Ahead

For this week's edition of Works for Me Wednesday, sponsored by Rocks In My Dryer, we're sharing our favorite online stores.

You may recall that Baby learned how to climb the stairs recently. Keeping him off the stairs has been a bit of a challenge because the bottom of our stairs just wasn’t designed to accommodate a baby gate. One side of the stairway is a drywall wall and the other side is a beautiful, wrought iron railing. For now, we are using a pressure gate, but the railing isn’t strong enough to stand up to the constant force of the gate. It’s also challenging for Bonus Daughters to climb over the gate every time they decide to leave their bedrooms, as infrequent an event as that is, and they don’t have the coordination or the gumption to put the gate back into place.

Desperate, I phoned a friend that has an equally challenging home. Her family owns a split-level house that has a wrought iron railing all the way around the living room, which overlooks the foyer and the stairs to the family room in their finished basement. She not only had a need for a railing at the top of the foyer stairs, but the rails were also spaced far enough apart for a child’s head to fit through. I knew she would have some advice for me and I was right. She referred me to the One Step Ahead store, which sells specialty safety items and other unique baby items that are difficult to find in ordinary department stores.

That’s what worked for me!