Cushions

In my ‘Snowball Effect‘ post I covered a bit of history about the four old lounger cushions and mentioned that I wanted to use them for an infant/toddler activity. That ‘plan’ didn’t turn out the way I envisioned – partly because I don’t like sewing – but it has had an interesting outcome.

In the Spring/Summer/Fall we spend most of our playtime outside where there are plenty of opportunities for gross motor activities. In the winter, we still go out daily but for much less time than in the warmer seasons. Although I’m sure getting on all the winter gear counts a physical activity, I still feel the children need more active play choices for the extra time we spend indoors.

In my Indoor Exercise post and the post about the balance pods I wrote about some of the indoor physical activities which the preschoolers and school-age children enjoy. However, my current group is very young and those activities are not particularly age appropriate or easy to adapt for them.

My initial plan was to use the old lounger cushions for an indoor gross motor play activity for the littlest ones in the group. The cushions are about two feet wide, six feet long and six inches thick though they have some buttons and quilting and have become lumpy and uneven over the many years we have used them.

I wanted to fold and roll the cushions into barrel, wedge, and rectangle shapes to use for soft climbers for the infants and toddlers. I hoped to sew covers to hold the cushions in the desired shapes – turns out I haven’t got the required time, patience or skill for sewing covers like that. I might have been more successful if I had wrapped them with duct tape instead – that is still and option.

I also found that when folded into squares or rolled into short barrels the cushions were nearly as tall as the counters and shelves in the playroom – not a safe climbing height. Folded in half as a 2′ x 3′ rectangle the height was ok but they used all the available floor space and would have turned the entire room into a bouncy house – could be fun, but not my goal.

My ‘I am frustrated/out of time/done with this’ solution was to simply stack two of the cushions on top of each other, roll into a long barrel, and stuff into a body pillow type pillowcase I made out of an old sheet. The result is two long, heavy, lumpy blobs that lay like speed humps across the playroom. My husband refers to them as ‘The Manatee’.

The problem now was that these, double sized, heavy log cushions were extremely difficult for me to hoist onto the shelf in the nap room where they were originally stored. This whole ‘renovate the playroom/move the trees’ adventure started because I needed to make it easier to get the cushions on/off the storage shelves when I wanted to use them.

At this point I was beginning to feel like this whole project was a fail. Then I realized that leaving these cushions out all the time might solve two problems. First, I wouldn’t have to face the hassle of dragging them in and out of storage. Second, they could help with the problem of defining the various play zones. This is the view of the floor space in the play room.

The block area is at the bottom right corner of this picture. The music & movement area along the left side and the housekeeping/store/dramatic play area is the top right corner and extends to include the left side of the counter and the table.

I used to use interlocking foam tiles on the playroom floor – available in various colours, I used a different colour mat for each of the different play zones. Those foam mats were easily damaged and Montgomery liked to eat them. So in 2021 I replaced them with rubber mats made from recycled tires – I love the durability, but they are all black so we only have imaginary lines to define spaces.

I’ve been experimenting with chalk and paint on some of the rubber tile scraps. I thought chalk would be nice for a temporary purpose/activity but it has proved difficult to wash completely off the mats. Paint seems to be a better option but would be permanent and, well…I like to be able to change things so I’ve been hesitant to paint the mats. But…what if I used cushion logs to define spaces…

I like to define the spaces because loose blocks from the block area or miscellaneous small toys from the housekeeping area are safety hazards when they are on the floor in the music & movement area. The cushions still offer the babies a soft climber opportunity but they also separate the ‘active’ area from the toy areas. Added bonus – they can be used for seating and even impromptu naps.

Using the cushion logs as dividers allows me to adjust the size of each of the play areas. There isn’t much space in the music & movement area in the picture above – certainly not enough space for the tunnels or the tumbling mats when the rope ladder or monkey bars are in use on the stall bars. The cushions can easily be moved out of the way for that though.

Moving both the log cushions into the block area doesn’t leave much space for building – it would annoy the school-age children. However, the infants and toddlers love this – and it encourages them to sit down in the block area too! Also great for story time.

I may have been a little disappointed that the soft climber didn’t turn out the way I originally planned but I am actually much happier with the versatility of the log cushions (or manatee).

Confession

This year, like every year, I planned multiple summer projects and so far I’ve managed to complete many of them.  There is however one project that is not proceeding as well as I had hoped.  The weather this summer is partly to blame – you see, I planned to work on reorganizing the basement on rainy days when it was too wet to work outside in the yard. There have been many days when it was too hot to work outside in the yard and it might actually be nice to spend some time in the basement but that little voice in my head always whispers ‘You are suppose to wait until it is raining‘ and of course it never does.

In my basement there is a twelve foot section of wall that is filled from floor to ceiling with plastic bins like this storing toys not currently in use;

Yes, they all have lovely labels describing what each bin contains.  There are also labels on all the art supply storage boxes on shelves and other various spaces throughout the house.  Visitors always comment on how organized I am. LOL

The problem is that some of those bins and boxes don’t actually contain what the label says they do.  In fact, in the basement, beyond the locked door in the area that is off limits to the children there is loose stuff. Much of the loose stuff belongs in one of those labelled bins but it doesn’t fit in it because there is something in that bin that doesn’t belong in there. This is what happens when I plan too many weekend projects and don’t get around to rotating toys until late on Sunday then don’t have time to put things away properly.  ‘I’ll fix it later’ I say.  Well,  this summer I intended to fix it – but it hasn’t rained enough so it is not done yet.

That’s not the confession.  The confession is that – and this may not actually surprise anyone – I think I might be a hoarder.  You see, along with reorganizing and putting things in their proper bins I also planned to purge – yes, I was going to get rid of stuff we don’t use.  Stop laughing! I’m serious. That was, IS my plan.

Every weekend I get a little more done.  Loose stuff and mystery boxes get spread out on the tables;

Some stuff gets boxed up to donate (it is kept out of sight so I won’t be tempted to take it back).  There are several empty shelves in the basement now;

There are only a few ‘sorting boxes’ left on the basement floor;

At one point there was barely any room to walk in the basement but now there is plenty of space, several empty bins, and new labels have been made so everything is accurate.

I’d also like to point out that I think that my ‘problem’ may have been caused by elementary school teachers.  It was my (now an adult) son’s Kindergarten teacher that asked me (and other parents) to collect milk jug lids and that is why I had a container full of hundreds of milk jug lids in the basement.  If you still need them – too late, I don’t have them any more.  I don’t have any shoe boxes either.  All those sleepless nights fretting about how my child was going to fail diorama making because I didn’t buy shoes that came in boxes with lids.  So, I started collecting shoe boxes – and now I just flattened dozens of them and overfilled my recycling bin.

I also have some extra space so I picked up a few more jungle animal toys.  Didn’t really need more – I had some already but now I have families of jungle animals.  I simply have to try and fit the new ones in the bin with the old ones.

I do still have a bin, two boxes and a shelf full of empty food and spice containers – I know I don’t need that many but I haven’t sorted through them to decide which ones are the most useful – remember, my recycling bin was too full.  I still have time.  Summer is not over yet and it might even rain sometime.  Besides, sometimes it is really cold in the winter and I might want to do things inside.  That is usually when I plan to defrost the freezers (which have a thick layer of ice now because last winter I waited too long and Spring arrived). Probably I should catch up on paperwork first though.

I may have other issues besides just hoarding stuff…

Year End 2017

It is December 31st and I have not written a post yet this month.  *sigh*  When I first started blogging (seven and a half years ago) I intended to write every day.   I soon realized that once or twice a week was sufficient.  Lately it has been only once or twice each month.  I really want to write more. I plan to write more. When I’m working out at the gym, outside hiking, or enjoying a hot steamy shower I create fantastic posts in my mind.  Sit down at the computer and….nope, got nothing now. Today I am adamant – I will write something to end the year.

I hosted our family Christmas dinner for nine on Christmas Eve.  The schedule was perfect – I had one full day for prep and cleaning before dinner day.  Stores were open so I didn’t fret about ‘what if I forgot something’. Of course I didn’t actually need to run out and get anything – that only happen’s when the stores are closed.  I made three vegetable dishes, two potato dishes, turkey, gravy, and a HUGE batch of stuffing.  Everyone loves stuffing so I make a separate roaster full of stuffing – used seven loaves of bread!

There were also the little extra snacky things like pickles and cheese and cranberry sauce etc that don’t require cooking.  I had done all my baking in the weeks before Christmas so dessert was covered (even now we still have dainties waiting to be eaten).  The whole dinner was completely stress free.  I had plenty of helpers available for the last minute ‘get everything on the table while it is hot’ rush and then everyone got to eat. 🙂

I ran three full loads through the dishwasher that day and washed four sink-fulls of bulky items but the kitchen was clean by 9 pm.  All the leftovers were packed up and frozen for future meals.  There was nothing left to do on Christmas day except sit and relax.  I suppose I could have written this post then, but I didn’t.  The other thing I didn’t do was take ANY Christmas dinner photos.

So instead, I’ll include this one of the team that pulled our sleigh on MCCA’s Dashing Through the Snow event earlier this month;

I had a great time playing outdoors with other amazing ECE’s  that day but didn’t manage to write a blog post about it either.

So now, as 2017 nears its end, I’ll begin making some plans for what I want to do in 2018. I’m not one for making ‘resolutions’ but maybe, if I reorganized my office space I’d be more inclined to sit at my desk and be productive…