Old Laundry Basket Finds a Purpose

Caedmon and I discovered a very exciting toy on Friday -- my old college laundry basket. It's been sitting around the duplex without a purpose since we moved in -- there's no extra storage closet for it like we had on Wilderness. I was about to ship it back over to the ARS warehouse. But then, I needed a safe place for Caed to hang out while I was getting ready on Friday and there it was, the laundry basket.

Caedmon has been increasing the strength in his core lately -- mostly from all the pilates he does in the morning -- and can sit up on his own pretty well these days. (It's always good to have the Boppy or something else soft nearby in case he looses his confidence.)

So, when I contemplated using the laundry basket, I thought that it would be a great way for him to practice sitting up while having something to catch him if he tilted over ... so we tried it. He liked it from the start and just enjoyed looking up at me and having his own little place to play.

Then, I added a blanket behind him for extra cushion, our Blue Cross Blue Shield neck rest behind his butt for extra support and two activity bars -- one strapped across his legs and the other directly in front of him -- and he was set. It was our homemade sitting-saucer or motor boat as we now call it since we can easily push him from room to room as we say, "Rrrmmm," just like a REAL motor boat :).

(It doesn't look like Caed is enjoying himself too much in this picture, but he's really just disguising his enjoyment.)

It's funny, my parents used to put me in their laundry basket when I was about Caed's age, except this one was more like a sleigh than a motor boat because they tied rope to the end of it and somehow attached it to our dog, Casey, gave me the "reigns" and off we would go. (How cool would that have been ... it did have reigns, but there was no way Casey was going to pull me around the house in the laundry basket.) I'll have to find that picture one of these days and post it.