Replacing My Office Chair

Ever since Echo started crawling  my old office chair had become problematic. She wants to be near me when I am at my computer and she constantly crawling under my chair and bumping her head on it. When we recently went to a pregnant friend's house for a game night and she had an exercise ball she was using as a chair. I knew that these were great tools for child birth (although I didn't use one in my own labor) but I hadn't considered they benefits of continued use until I saw how much Echo loved to stand near the ball and drum on it. After that night I knew I wanted to replace my clunky old office chair with an exercise ball ball. Here are some of the benefits of using one at your computer instead of a traditional chair.

1. They are great for your posture and spine alignment.

2. They keep you moving (seriously, it's so hard not to bounce while you sit on one) and therefore burning more calories while you spend time on the computer.

3. They are inexpensive and come in any color you want making them easy to afford and fit in with your decor.

4. Babies love them. If you have young kids it's awesome for them to drum on and play with and you don't have to worry about them getting hurt. It's also a great tool for soothing babies because you cvan easily bounce them while sitting on one.

5. They are compact and save space.

6. You can also use them for exercise (if you feel so inclined).

7. They are fun! I love bouncing away on mine.

Having a ball, haha

A New Baby Gate

As Echo gets more and more mobile she is finding new things to get in to on a daily basis. Thus our baby proofing saga continues. While I was out of town visiting relatives last month Eric built us a stellar baby gate for our loft area.

We had a couple of baby gates of the more traditional variety but they were all a pain to take up and down and we need to get in and out of this area frequently. Eric used oak for the frame and cedar for the body of the gate. I have to say having a home built gate is a lot nicer looking than buying one, plus it fits the space perfectly. Another item checked off our baby proofing to do list!

No climbing down the stairs for you!

Let The Baby Proofing Begin!

Echo against the new fabric we put up to keep her from falling out of the loft ;-)

Echo has been getting increasingly mobile over the past few weeks and although she isn't technically crawling yet she is so close! In spite of the fact that she isn't exactly making the crawling motions she still manages to scoot, wriggle and pivot her way around the room. You can seriously look away for a minute, look back and she'll be five feet from where you left her. This has necessitated the beginning of our baby proofing efforts. It's a day we both looked forward to and dreaded. While we are excited at Echo's continued development our house is a baby proofing nightmare and we have so much to do! Here is what we've started with so far. 

A small portion of the cords we removed from the loft.

 Echo has lately developed a fascination with cords and wires of any kind, yikes! Any cord she can get her hands on goes directly in her mouth for chewing, this obviously had to stop. Since we spend most of our family time in the loft where the carpet is easy for her to play on we had to really re-examine the space. You see, the loft is also where our computers and tv live. Eric spent a good part of the day yesterday reworking as many of our electronics as he could to be wireless, allowing us to remove a lot of the wires and cables. What we couldn't remove got tucked away either up under a desk or under the edge of the carpet.

The loft seen from below

One of our big worries in baby proofing was the railing in our loft. It has widely spaced rungs that would be easy for her to slip though. At the same time this area is highly visible when you first walk in the house so we wanted it to be somewhat attractive still. We purchased three yards of fabric on sale at Ikea and used a heavy duty staple gun to fasten it to our railings. It's up there so well now that there's no way she can tear it down and it keeps us from worrying about her falling through.

Newly cleaned and organized loft

We also spent some time generally de-cluttering and cleaning the loft, the less random junk we have laying around the less there is for her to get in to. It already looks so much nicer without all the clutter that tends to build up in a highly used area. I just hope we can keep it this nice!

Still to come are baby gates at the tops and bottoms of the stairs and child safety locks on the cabinets and drawers. On top of that we still have to baby proof the rest of the house! This baby thing sure is a lot of work! Good thing she's so cute ;-)