For those of you who have yet to experience baby-proofing your house, let me tell you: it is a … curse word! Could decent looking baby gates cost any more?! I’m not sure if it’s because he’s a boy, or because he’s Caleb, or both…but if there is a sharp corner, his head will find it. If there is something to climb, he will climb it, and fall (on his head). If there is a plug, he will pull it out and insert it into his mouth. If there is a button, he will push it. Shall I go on?

Yesterday he stepped on one end of a cat toy and it flew up into his nose, bruising it. (It looks a little better today, but it’s still swollen). All that to say, as a parent you will at some point come to the conclusion that you do all you can to prevent pain and injury, but your kid is still going to get hurt. I’m just going to try and make sure he doesn’t kill himself too badly. Of course, I’m failing to mention here the times he’s sustained injury due to my own stupidity. (Oops, just mentioned it)!

Baby-proofing and lack of space are the reasons we traded in our dining room table for a big plastic play door (among other things). We had a tight budget so I had to get a little creative! Unfortunately I’m not artistic, so it isn’t fancy, but it suits us just fine…and more importantly, Caleb loves it and has a relatively safe, confined space to play!

Before:

After:

Couch: Ikea. It folds out into a bed/fort!

Tent: Ikea

Frames: Ikea

Inside the frames are Dr. Seuss flash cards backed with colored paper and a book that Caleb destroyed (this was before I realized that he likes to eat paper) and I’d kept for a time such as this.

White Shelf: Walmart

Toy Organizer: Walmart

Canvas: Joann’s. I painted it and decorated it with an alphabet flash card set from the consignment store. Then I hot glued some mini clothes pins and put pictures of Caleb and our family inside. One day, I’ll display his artwork there.

Frames: Ikea. Filled with a few favorite greeting cards from Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Floating Shelves to display books (Dr. Seuss, of course!): Ikea

Rug: Target

Toy door: baby consignment store, highly recommend checking one out! I just wiped this buddy down with many lysol wipes and saved over $50 on a toy that he loves!

Blocking off the room with gates was the trickiest business of all, but after ordering a gate that didn’t fit–we got this one with extensions and it worked like a charm! Our space is over 6 feet wide so we feared we wouldn’t be able to find a nice looking gate for this opening. So glad we found this!

Happy Playing, kids!