You Don't Have to Tell Me Twice

Or in this case, about 30 times. Since Noah has been in therapy, each and every therapist has recommended to me at some point or another to put his toys out of reach. The point being that if the toys are not as easily accessible to him, he will 1. Stay with an activity longer, and he won’t be distracted by other toys, and 2. he will actually have to request toys instead of just getting them himself. This always sounded like a good idea to me, and at one point, I halfheartedly attempted it.

In our new house, we have a dedicated game room on the second floor. Getting it organized with cabinets to put away all Noah’s things was on our long, new home, to do list, but on Friday when another therapist suggested (again) that I make his toys less accessible, I decided the game room needed to move to the top of the list.

Here is where Ikea comes in. Since we’ve moved back, I have been doing some web searching­­­­ on Ikea’s online store, horribly difficult to navigate, and I also made two trips to the store. One solo and one with Dean.

Both trips resulted in Noah pretending to nap on this pink bed in the kid's section, which is only about an eighth of the way into the store. And, an eight of the store is not very much. And, the way the store is set up is that once you enter, you have to continue through the entire 10,000 square feet to get to the end. So, both trips also resulted in me carrying a 35-pound toddler kicking and screaming through a 10,000 square foot maze of bedding, bath, and textiles empty-handed… well, except for said toddler. Did I also mention that Ikea is a madhouse? And, that’s on a weekday. On the weekend, well, let’s just say, it’s completely insane. So, this weekend after a frustrating hour of creating a shopping list on Ikea.com, I sent Dean on a buying mission. Noah not included. Dean survived, and we spent part of the weekend putting together part of our order, since Ikea is all assembly required and not everything was in stock.

I was planning to post some great before and after pictures, but it seems this is going to be an ongoing project. So, this is before. Clean and empty.

And, this is the first edition to Noah's new playroom.

It is along the back wall. We also bought two eight foot cabinets with doors to put on either side of these shelves. Eight of the smaller colored bins fit inside the cabinets, but I think we will be returning them. Amazingly, I don't think Noah has enough toys to fill them. Instead, we will probably be investing in a couple more of these units to fill out the back wall.

My plan for the wall between the windows is some little tables with baskets underneath to hold the bigger toys. I found the idea here. Pretty cute, right?