Handy-Dandy

Forget handy-man; I'm the handy-mom.

OK, so maybe I'm more Red Green than Bob Vila; duct tape is my secret weapon (or not so secret; it's hard to hide the silver stuff when it's in the middle of the room). I swear, I can fix almost anything with it.

For example, Simon has figured out that there's no door knob on our bedroom door. This means that he can just crawl over and push the door open any time he wants to go in and play with Daddy's toys- a BIG no-no. I thought about just leaving the door open and putting a baby gate across the doorway, but that would mean I'd have to go out and buy another one... nah. I tried to tape the door shut, but it didn't work. Now we've got a lasso-type thing made out of duct tape stuck on the back of the door; it comes out of the room and loops around the top of a chair in the living room, keeping the door closed. It looks weird, but it works well, at least until someone gets trapped in the bedroom and has to holler to be let out.

We also have a power bar (the kind that plugs go into, not the semi-edible kind you choke down after a workout) that was resting on a heater in the living room all summer. We reluctantly decided to turn a few heaters on last week, but having electrical cords touching the heater seemed like a little bit of a fire hazard. Duct tape to the rescue! Everything is securely attached to the wall.

I can even do plumbing. A few days ago I turned on the hot water to the bath tub (it has to be off most of the time or it drips), and the pipe started spraying water all over the room, from behind the toilet to the door. A duct tape tourniquet has reduced this to a fast dripping for the moment; we'll have to get that taken care of properly, but at least most of the water's getting to the tub for now.

Ooh, and then there was the luggage strap I made out of ribbon and duct tape... not attractive, but certainly distinctive!

Oh yeah, I'm proud of my skills. Just call me Mrs. Fix-it!