TT's Montessori Room / Shared Boy Room Update!

Just like with TT, this mama never figured out how to transition a sleeping baby from her arms to a crib, so at about 8 months, we drove up to my sister's house, finagled her half-taken apart Kura bunk bed onto the top of our car, and drove it home to use it.  We played with a few different set ups (including the queen under the Kura), but this set up works the best.  We bought a European Sleepworks children's mattress - and dash still has the organic natural latex bed that we bought for Turner.

Our boys are sharing their room and beautifully!

One morning TT and I went to the hardware store and came home with two curtain rods and plumbing parts.  After a giant rip appeared (most likely done by elves in the middle of the night - since I have NO IDEA how my kids would have access to something to rip a curtain) in the living room sheers, I replaced them, but we took the ripped sheers and created TT's tent.

Perfect for a cozy "alone" space for him, for time travel adventures, and peek-a-boo for our peek-a-boo addict.

We painted the bed with chalk board paint BEFORE we put it up and it has been a huge outlet for TT.  In fact, I didn't know he knew how to draw identifiable objects until we got the bed and he was drawing on this huge scale - now he spends a lot of time on paper, but, as you can see, the chalkboard bed gets a lot of use.

This is our time travel machine.

 The kids spend a lot of time under here - reading, playing, wrestling, cuddling.

Dash loves his sheepskin

And...wants to attack the camera

The curtains help "protect" TT from his nightmares and give him a way to play with toys too dangerous for the baby.

The boys clothes and toys are in the expedit all labeled (with pictures so they can find them themselves).

 We've had to really consolidate our stuff at this point - we're bursting out of the seams of our house.  It is time for a purge, but we keep purging and more and more stuff just keeps appearing...We've truly utilized every inch of this room without it feeling claustrophobic.

 

Organic Non-Toxic Baby Supplies

So, since we got pregnant with T, we've been on a health kick.  No BPA in the house, no microwaving in plastic, and almost 100% organic vegis, with all free-range organic meats.

One thing we read which we found really convincing was that the SIDS issue was partly caused by flame retardants in baby mattresses.  Most people buy new mattresses and the babies, when they sleep on their tummies, breathe in the toxins all night long.

We bought an organic mattress, and we were particularly glad when T made it VERY clear at a very young age that he was a tummy sleeper.  We tried to get him to sleep on his side, on his back, on our chest, but eventually we gave in.  Dude liked to sleep like a little roasted chicken with his booty in the air and his face in the mattress.

We bought him a crib mattress which at the time seemed a little excessive price wise, but as we're about to use it with our second baby - we're so glad we made the investment with our first!



T slept really well on it, even with his excessive vomiting (pretty much his entire life) the mattress looks good as new as we took it out of storage.  When we did our garage clean out/moving baby things into the house again move, we realized one thing we didn't do well - the changing table.

Baby T actually did spend a good bit of time there.  Bubbs would play him guitar, he had stuff to look at, and was generally happy, but we didn't think about the fact that the changing pad was made of plain OLD foam.  We had inherited it from my sister, and at the time weren't as aware of the dangers of foam decomposing.  After being in our garage for a year, it was in even worse shape, so we tossed it.  Strangely, there weren't a lot of alternatives to the poison foam ones!

Once again I did a search for naturepedic (since we had such good luck there with our crib mattress) and ended up purchasing the contoured changing pad as well.

While I usually prefer to buy things used, I couldn't find this used at all!

We dropped a few more dollars on this than we had originally planned, but our little guys are so important to us and anything we can do to increase their safety and health, we're in for.

I'm still going to handmake a changing pad cover once my leave starts (in 7 days!), but for now, T likes to put his dolls on it (it fits perfectly on our ikea expedit shelves too!).

*the links included in this post are paid advertisements - I wouldn't endorse them if I didn't love them and truly believe in their benefits.

Ikea Nasum Boxes - Ugh.

The baskets in this picture?  Nasum baskets from Ikea.

They were amazing.  Sturdy, deep, non-offensive.  The "straw" sometimes came unraveled, but we really liked them.  They held all of T's clothes, cloth diapers, wipes, toys, etc.  When he pulled them out of the slot they were light - so it didn't hurt him like drawers would have.

At $15 a drawer, it was pricy, but so versatile, so when we moved T into the bigger bedroom and the records into the dining room (did we tell you we did that?), we knew we'd use our extra Expedits for the baby's clothes - so we'd have to buy more baskets.

Today, 6 months pregnant, in a rainstorm, I went to ikea to buy a bunch of the baskets - 10 to be exact.  They filled the shopping cart. 

Piled high in my shopping cart, I did the ikea shopping cart crawl back to the car in the pouring rain. You know the crawl - with the basket that wants to chase its tail.  Then rolls away from you in the parking lot and won't stay at your car as you unload.

Drive back across the bay, bring all 10 baskets up two flights of stairs (three trips), put them all together - only to realize that they are now made of cheap crap that falls apart instantly.

%$*%#$

The hinges were once metal.  All 15 of our current ones are made of metal.  Sturdy, screwed into place - awesome.

The current ones?  Plastic "hinges" (really just a piece of plastic folded into a V) and nailed into place - so the bottoms don't fit snugly and the baskets start coming apart moments after you put them together.

I'm pissed.

Now I have to go BACK to ikea.

Not only that, but they don't make the metal hinges anymore.

So, I'll either have to get a different kind of basket, or hunt for metal hinged baskets in ikeas across the land.  I don't want another kind of basket.

End rant about something stupid and insignificant.

Does my bedroom look like a hotel room?

So, everyone who has stepped into my new and improved bedroom has said that it looks like a hotel room.  Cool by me!  I LOVE it.

When we moved into this house, we lost our mellow groovy all white and textured vibe and went with a more playful colorful toddler proof look.  My bedroom never really felt like a place to relax, but more like a place where all the leftover furniture went to die.

I did everything I could, but I never really liked our old bedroom.





There was too much empty space, not enough cohesion, and though I loved each piece individually, they just didn't seem to GO together.

Since Young House Love posted their idea about wardrobes flanking their bed, I thought it looked cool, but we always had plenty of storage.

Till we thought about where we would put two children.

T's room was tiny, but worked really well for just him.



But there was no room for a crib, let alone another floor bed or clothes for an additional person.

I was happy to give up my "big" room and trade for a smaller one.

So we did.

One morning while Bubbs and T were occupied, I painted the room dark grey.  Bubbs was HORRIFIED when he got home (it did look almost black in the evening) and T was pretty disturbed that his room wasn't there anymore.

We had ordered Ikea kitchen cabinets to fit the 30" spaces beside the bed, ikea curtains, and drawers and shelves for the kitchen cabinets.  They arrived in huge boxes.

The next day, Bubbs got going on putting together the cabinets while I put together T's new room.

By 6pm, both rooms were done.  Well, mostly done.


We hung the curtains via Young House Love's method (.79 cheapo curtain hangers). 

I bought the wrong kind of drawers, so they sit to be returned.

We purchased $50 swing-arm lights and installed them from Home Depot.

The chandelier had to be hacked (from Cost Plus) since we didn't have an overhead light in that room.  I bought the wrong color chain, so we'll fix that eventually, but for now it works!  I have to say I was totally impressed that Bubbs knew how to make that work.

We still have some art to hang on the opposite walls.

The light puts a honey comb pattern on the walls so T is obsessed with our "beehive" room and LOVES to snuggle in his hive and hide.

The closed in head of the bed is SO cozy and we keep saying how much we love hte room every time we go to sleep.

T's new room is a MAJOR hit.


I need to patch some spots on the wall still and re-arrange some art, but dude plays in his room SO much more than he used to!






There's room for the baby's crib and eventually a floor bed where the wicker chair is now.



Plus, this might sound nuts, but the "view" from each room is better with the new set up.  Since we mostly sit on the floor in T's room, all you can see is the blue sky and a few tree tops (rather than before, in our room, you would sit on the bed and see the cars parked in the neighbor's backyard).

And in our new room, since you sit on the bed, you see the blue sky as well instead of the stucco and dirt on the neighbor's house.

Overall, total success.

T's Montessori Room - Color Updates

When we first moved in, this is what we started with in here.

Note the uneven temporary curtains, furniture that didn't work (but was perfect for his old room), and the mattress on the floor (oops - ended up getting mold underneath).



Mama couldn't stand the uneven curtains, so they just came down. We bought a new bed, built a low frame, and moved out the furniture that didn't work.



Finally, the front facing bookshelves (spice racks) were hung.



I found some orange curtains at Cost Plus (or what you call "world market"), hung his chinese checkers board, and got him a down comforter (and let him use our westelm organic white duvet cover - another oops).


I am LOVING the way his room is looking now. Not quite as calm and serene, but much more complete.

The curtains are finally hemmed (well, hemmed using iron on hem tape). The west elm duvet cover went away (after a botched dye job), and T is now using our chevron striped one.



We have some photos of his cousins that need to be hung (leaning up against the wall).

See the balls on top of the cabinet? From our Christmas tree :)

Montessori style floor bed

I've gotten a few questions about T's floor bed, so I thought I'd show pictures to show how easy it is to build.



We moved T to a big boy bed when he was 8 months old. We were (well I was) super frustrated that I couldn't do the transfer without waking him. I would nurse him to sleep in our bed then try to move him to his crib. He would always wake up when we moved him.

We didn't want to have him sleep the whole night in our bed so we needed a solution.

I had read about Montessori rooms that used twin beds or even crib mattresses on the floor. We had a cotton organic futon in the house, so we started by using that. It was amazing. I would nurse him to sleep, he would fall asleep, then I could sneak away for grown-up time and not worry about him crawling off our high bed.

We baby-proofed his entire room so it would be totally safe if he were left alone in there or woke up while we were sleeping. In the beginning we put a baby gate up in the doorway when we left and we just left the door open.

A few months into this set up we all got bad allergies and I remembered that I had read that floor beds could grow mold. They say that if they aren't raised up, the air doesn't circulate and the moisture that our bodies naturally produce while we sleep (plus the daily fog moisture) can create mold under the bed. I didn't pay too much attention to it since I had done it for a year in an apartment while I was single and it wasn't a problem.

We lifted the mattress to check and the bottom was covered in mold.

Talk about feeling like bad parents.

We headed out the same day to buy him a fancy pants organic hippy mattress. We went with Organic Rubber Latex with a wool cover.

The store we went to "A Happy Planet" was great working with us and not trying to sell us the same insanely expensive mattress we bought for ourselves like 6 months before. Since we always end up spending at least half the night with him we decided to go with a queen for our comfort. Plus, the mattress has a 30 year warranty, so someday it could be our guest bed as well. He also told us that they could build us the "frame" for the floor bed and they do it all the time.



It is essentially three 2x4's that are cut to the length of the bed (in our case, the same length as our queen bed).

Then you roll the pre-made slats over them and screw the corners in (so they don't move around). You can get the slats from ikea (or craigslist). Ours were provided by our mattress store.



We wanted ours raised bit more, so he put little pieces of wood under the 2x4s (one in the middle - see how it raises up a bit?, and one on each corner).



We live in a funky house with sloping floors, so we had to add another piece of wood under one corner to even it out (so it didn't make noise when we snuck off after he fell asleep).


For full disclosure, there are a few things that aren't great about this frame.
It is a little squeaky when we (meaning big people) get on and off.
We should have put felt under the boards because when we have to move it, I'm always afraid it is going to scratch the floors.
It isn't really good looking. I know this shouldn't be too important, but you just can't make T's bed and have it look great since the bed is all scrunched up against the wall.

But, we have total piece of mind.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you have other floor bed frames that work for you!

Montessori vs. Waldorf vs. Reggio Emilia

T's going back to "school" or his home based daycare.

This is the perfect setting for him in his babyhood, but like all San Francisco mamas I'm starting to research preschools since some require an application a year in advance.

As I know from the nanny disaster, his personality and needs could change and develop a TON between now and when he's two or three (when he enters pre-school).

First, he is going to preschool. Even if I could stay home he would go. Pre-school is very important to life long success - so that's a given.

But, when I started looking at choices I got confused and anxious.

Montessori.

For one, I thought I wanted a Montessori school. There are several in our neighborhood that seem fantastic (based on reading only - I haven't done any visits yet). I've really liked our room setup and it seems to be intuitive, respectful to T's learning, and spot on when it came to a safe room for our baby (from 8 months - 18 months, so far).

I'm concerned about discipline. We are fairly strict followers of the unconditional parenting model (children are naturally kind and well intentioned) and don't really "discipline" but teach and try to help T communicate when he can't (and we're finding it works for us).

I've read quite a bit from parents of Montessori programs that there are time-outs in the program and it is quite "strict." This article actually addresses both those issues, but I still don't quite trust that Montessori is right for my boy.

I've also read a lot of real accounts of Montessori with flash cards and working on academics - which I don't think is appropriate for Pre-school.

I would have loved Montessori. I am very "rule based" loved to "pretend" to clean house and wanted to be a grown up so bad. I'm not sure my husband would have thrived. When I talk to my mom about my brother's experience in Montessori, she said she wouldn't do it over again. She thought he was bored. As an adult he is a technological genius (coming up with amazing inventions and actually creating them), he is an incredible artist, and super duper creative. I'm not sure the the Montessori program helped him foster this and I actually think (and so does my mom) that he might have had some creativity stifled there.

With a musician husband and a child who isn't as interested at mimicking our behavior as his friends (he likes to sweep and clean the sink - that's about it), I'm not sure the program is right for us.

Granted, I'm signed up for the local Montessori tours this spring. Maybe the programs will be right once we get there. But my gut is saying no.

Waldorf.

I never ever in a million years thought I'd be right for Waldorf. It seems a little hippy dippy alternate reality for me.

But, I also felt the same way about homebirth, so clearly I have some inner hippy (or maybe these things aren't so hippy after all).

To be totally honest, I stopped exploring Waldorf when I saw how cost prohibitive the elementary and high school were. We pay A LOT for daycare and can continue paying it for T's education. We pay the equivalent of tuition at a lot of the top high schools in San Francisco right now. Waldorf is double this. Unless I can be convinced otherwise, I'm not even looking at it.

Some of the coolest kids we know are Waldorf kids. And they don't seem strange - and have really cool views on technology. I do think we can get a great education for him in a more "traditional" setting and still foster his creativity and let him be successful.

Reggio Emilia.

I am so enamored with Reggio Emilia that when I talk about it I get excited. Sort of high actually.

There are a lot of preschools around town that say they are "based" on Reggio Emilia, but I think they mean that they are play based and creative. From what I've read a true Reggio Emilia program incorporates parents and family into the school (unlike Montessori - from what I've read) and believes in a true community. It is child led and really focuses on the importance of children exploring what they want to learn. There is such an emphasis on mutual respect of parents, teachers, and children as a team that makes me extremely comfortable.

I could go on and on, but essentially, Reggio Emilia seems like Attachment Parenting, Unconditional Parenting, and Nurture Shock, and my gut feelings all in one. Like pure magic. Makes my soul feel good about giving my son over to education.

Anyway, the problem is, the two Reggio Emilia schools I've found are way the hell across town. And serious prep schools. And one is an Italian school. So, would Turner enter school and not understand anything? Would he totally freak out? We'd be required to learn Italian too, and would I fail? I took several years of Spanish in school and can't speak a bit.

There IS a public Reggio Emilia preschool, but I think it might only be for family that could be subsidized. I've called and not gotten an answer yet. Which isn't a great sign for a school.

That's my take.

Again, I'm not positive on any of this, but I'll keep searching.

More montessori baby room updates!

We've made some updates to T's room that are working out beautifully!


1) Stuffed animal storage: If it doesn't fit shoved in here, it doesn't stay in our house. Plus, they are the perfect height for T to grab them and talk to them then put them back!




2) Child Safe Frames - Family pictures: See the frames to the left of the animals? Turner has been obsessed with my new family pics and points and says "see it" which then requires me to pick him up and show him the pictures. I thought he needed his own.


We took some ikea frames and heavy duty sticky velcro and stuck them to the walls (the velcro is so we can change out the pictures). It is strong enough that he can't pull them down and hurt the frames or himself, and you can't see it!


3) Glass Dog Nightlight: How fantastic is this dog? How much more fantastic is he when I tell you that he lights up? This is T's nightlight. We found him at an estate sale. I love him. I am terrified that since he's like 50 years old he's going to explode, but Bubbs swears he's safe. The light he gives off is gloriously mellow low light.


4) 3D Fisherman Painting: This painting. Well. It really speaks for itself.


5) Ikea globe light: T's room doesn't come with an overhead light, so we had to find lamps. This one is fantastic. The light is really pretty and its bright enough for stories when it is dark out.



His room is one of my favorite rooms in the house. Not only because it is calming compared to the rest of the chaos, but because we get great time together in there...and, everything is safe.

The Latt table of our dreams

We got T his own table to see if it helped with the hatred of the high chair problem.

Is it ugly with a capital U?

Um - yes.

Has it already made my life easier in three days?

H*ll yes.

I have no idea why, but the boy loves it.




It faces the blank wall.


He brought his spatula with him to keep him company

I leave snacks on the table (tell him they are there) and he gets up on the chair, sits down, and eats, reading his book.  For like 3-4 minutes at a time!  Alone!



3-4 minutes?



That's a million years in my house.




Remember when they were really small and you kept waking them up to see if they were still alive when they were sleeping?



I keep doing that here.  I'm so excited that he's entertaining himself (and not physically attached to my body) that I grab the camera or say hello...and he's up and on me again.

I'm hoping to head down to Tap Plastics today to get some plexi-glass to cover the cardboard (to make it easier to clean and hopefully much prettier).

Montessori Baby Room - Take Two

We have been loving T's room.

We all got stuffy noses awhile back and realized that we needed to take his bed off the floor. We got warnings from the mattress store that mold could grow (especially in foggy places like San Francisco), plus, we wanted to vacuum and dust around it.

**edited to add: when we lifted it up there WAS mold under it. I'm not sure why we thought we were special and it wouldn't happen to us. My search terms were heavy with "floor bed" this week so I thought I'd make sure people understood this. We had to purchase a new mattress - stat. I did this for a mattress of mine at one point and it didn't happen - so who knows why and when - but seriously - give your bed some ventilation.

We had a quick platform built for the mattress which is essentially made from two 2x4's and slats.

Once we got it all together in the same place his floor mattress was - mama panicked.

His old set up

Why?

The bed was now three inches taller, and while T used to get up on his tippy toes to look out the window - he was now in prime position to climb out our third story flat. The windows are locked, but not totally babyproofed yet. Plus, I've always known his bed shouldn't be under a window anyway in case of an earthquake.

So...at 7:45 (15 minutes before lights out for T), I made us totally rearrange the room.

And I LOVE IT!

Behind his little chair are the ikea spice racks that used to hold his books - they are going to go back on the wall at some point (hopefully this evening). We got rid of T's dresser (once Mama's vanity and also once a desk), and put his clothes in the baskets of the expedit.

The white blanket is one of the softest in the world and its T's special at-home blanket (the smaller version I made him stays at daycare). The brown comforter is for Bubbs or myself since one of us (usually me) ends up sleeping on his bed with him almost every night.

You can't really see it here, but this set up give him SO MUCH MORE free space to play. The bed used to be half on the rug, but now the rug fits perfectly in that spot, plus you can close the bedroom door (which we used to not be able to do since the rug was so high piled).

This looks pretty sloppy, but we're okay with it for now :)