One of the most-repeated words in my house lately is "Hot!", something I say every time Eric wanders into the kitchen when I'm cooking. I'll say it emphatically and he repeats it yet gestures toward the stove anyway while getting way too close in my opinion, which makes me completely nervous. He likes to help himself to the contents of the pantry when no one's looking, and even if I'm engrossed in work at the computer, I'll go running if I think Eric's in the kitchen while there's something on the stove. His older brother and sisters all had a healthy respect for safety issues and were relatively cautious, but leave it to the youngest to also be the most fearless.
It turns out I have more to fear than Eric simply burning his hand on the gas flame or pulling a pot of soup down on himself or opening the oven while it's in use and crawling inside (am I the only one with these fears?): he could also open the oven door and climb up on it, causing the entire stove to tip over.
You don't want to know what happened to the kids who have done this.
Home Depot and Lowe's both will install anti-tip brackets when they install a new stove. I'll bet they're easy to retrofit, too; a simple L-bracket would probably do the trick. You'll still have to turn your pot handles around and hope toddler pigheadedness soon turns into cautious restraint, but at least you'll have one thing less to worry about.
