I Can't Believe It's Not Buttery Baby Spread

What a morning we had yesterday! I was in the bathroom drying my hair, and Daphne was playing with her foamy blocks on the bathroom floor. When I looked down at her as I put my dryer away, I saw that she was starting to get upset and trying to (unsuccessfully) crawl away from the sink area. "Aw," I thought, "she thinks she's stuck under the bathroom cabinet." I figured her foot was at a weird angle under the overhang where the cabinet connects with its base. I crouched down and asked, "Are you stuck?" But as I looked, I realized she really was stuck. My heart began to pound faster.

There is a gap between the base of our bathroom vanity and the main cabinet piece. Daphne somehow managed to get her foot over and into the base part, so that it rested underneath the floor of the cabinet part. In total, the vanity seemed to have her pinned in three spots -- at the top of her foot, near the ankle, and across her calf. I tugged as gently as I could at whatever tiny leg and foot parts I could grasp. Then I yanked a wee bit harder. But she was really starting to get upset, and I was afraid I was going to hurt her. I ran to the kitchen and got a tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter from the fridge. I slathered every bit of leg and foot that I could reach with the buttery spread and tried pulling again, but she and I just weren't able to budge that foot.

I called Leo at work, but his line was busy. I thought for a split second about racing to a neighbor's house, but then I realized that 1) it wasn't a good idea to run out of the house with Daphne in this predicament and 2) most of the folks around me who are home mid-morning on a Wednesday are older, and what would they be able to do anyway? So I did the only other thing I could think of. I called 911.

"I know this is going to sound crazy, but my 10-month-old has her foot stuck in the bathroom sink cabinet," I exclaimed. I really tried to sound calm when speaking with the dispatcher, but I seriously was getting kind of freaked out. I wasn't sure just how tightly Daphne's precious little footsie was being squeezed by the wood surrounding it, or whether she cut herself as she explored our bathroom's hidden treasures with her toes.

It seemed like an hour had passed as I envisioned the jaws of life being used to extract Daphne from my bathroom vanity, but it was probably five minutes later when an ambulance pulled into the driveway. Two fire and rescue workers came into the bathroom and assessed the situation, which they later admitted they have never seen before. They talked about rolling or tilting Daphne in an effort to turn her foot, but she was getting more upset and didn't seem to want her body turned by these men. A fire truck then pulled up by the house, and two more fire and rescue workers jumped out and quickly made their way to my small bathroom. One of them had a crowbar, and after devising a quick plan with two of the others, he pried the cabinet off its base just enough to create more of a gap for the release of Daphne's foot.

Hooray!! Now I know how Baby Jessica's mom felt. Okay, now I'm being overly dramatic. But it truly was a wonderful moment of relief and joy.

Daphne received an official check by one of the friendly workers and was declared to be no worse for the wear. She had a small scrape on her ankle and a larger red mark across her calf, but the mark is already gone today and the scrape doesn't look bad at all. As I signed the official emergency documents, Daphne held on to me tightly but already seemed to be in better spirits. By the time they drove off, she was quite calm, and minutes later she was crawling around the living room floor, no doubt looking for more secret passages.

As I replay the events in my mind, I wonder the following:
1) How is it possible that we could have all the doors and drawers of the bathroom vanity baby-proofed, and not realize that there is a Daphne-foot-sized gap at the bottom?
AND
2) Why didn't I run for baby oil instead of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter?