I love to arrange my home to make it as child friendly as possible. Some may say our house is more geared towards children than adults and I would have to agree - Our money tends to be spent on things for them more often than us. As our children enter new stages of development or if another little one joins our family I reevaluate our current set up and make any changes needed. Just recently, Baby L was so kind to bring a few necessary adjustments to my attention. I thought I would share some of them with you.
I like to keep the girls' drinking cups along with a child sized water pitcher out for them during the day. We have always just kept them on their table (you can see a bit about it here), but Baby L is a little monkey that loves to climb (as well as play with water). If you turn your head for just a moment he would climb up onto the table and proceed to pour out the entire water pitcher. I needed to figure out a new space that was high enough to be out of Baby L's reach but still low enough for the girls to easily access. One of our very dear friends out grew her wooden icebox a few months ago and gave it to us and we placed it in our children's play kitchen (older pictures here, we have simplified our toys quite a bit since then). That seemed like the perfect thing for the 'water station'.
Although I have a feeling I will need to move it again in the near future. I wonder if Baby L and his furry accomplice will devise a plan to get to it in the meantime... Rascals, I tell ya!
Besides being a monkey, Baby L is also a little daredevil. He still co-sleeps with us on our bed and seems to enjoy waking us up with a start early in the morning as he crawls at ludicrous speed towards the edge of the bed. Needless to say, we went ahead and put our mattress on to the floor.
I also set up a little corner just for him in our room. I like to keep it simple for my own sake. I can remember our dear teacher Miss Elizabeth telling us, "If you dump all of your children's toy into one pile on the floor and you feel too overwhelmed to pick them up - they have too many things!". So he has a stump with a little knit pig, a set of nesting bowls and a little book basket on it. I added two wooden trucks, too as they are his favorite toys at the moment. I rotate the books out quite often and in general like to limit it to about three in there at a time. Above he has Mine! A backpack baby story (but our copy is just in english), Mama Mama, The Prickly Hedgehog, and Buiten Spelen by Ronald Heuninck. This little spot of his really saves us in the morning. He goes right over to it when he first wakes up, giving me a chance to get a few extra minutes of sleep. (Since I don't get any at night anymore with his molars coming in, poor guy!)
So that is where we are at now. I really enjoy making my children feel like this home of ours is their space as much as it is ours.
In unrelated news, I spilled the beans to C tonight about our homeschooling plans for this year. She asked me if she was going to school when K goes this fall. I told her that she wouldn't be going to school with K but that she would be attending Kindergarten at home with Mama. K asked me if I was going to pretend to be C's teacher. I told her I wouldn't be pretending but really teaching. I am not sure what C thinks of it really, I don't think she fully understands. I'll ease her more into it over these next few weeks.
