Meet Trigger. No, he's not one of Sarah Palin's children, though I can see how the name might confuse people. He's the spring-loaded, Radio Flyer, bouncing horse who inspired Shawn and I to turn our rarely used 4th bedroom into a playroom last weekend. When Santa dropped Trigger at our house on Christmas Eve, he knew that the horse would need to find a permanent home somewhere other than on our main floor living area.
Our pie in the sky playroom would be a finished basement room, but since a couple of gallons of paint are way cheaper than drywalling a humid basement, we decided that we'd go upstairs for now. Violet's bedroom--a good sized room, might I add--is already packed full of toys. So we scrapped our office/guest bedroom/catch all crap room and devoted it to Violet. Now she has an office for her very important work. One wall got the chalkboard treatment and the other three walls took on a robin-egg blue. Shawn and I may love the chalkboard more than Violet does, but on the whole, the girl is thrilled with her playroom. She's had a lot of fun showing her "pwaywoom" to her cousins and her friend Avery. Hopefully, having one room devoted to toys will prevent us from having anymore parades like this one:
The parade in the photo was the result of 4 kids left unattended upstairs at our house during a potluck dinner last week. The kiddos took every single toy out of Violet's bedroom and closet, and then packed our hallway--the parade route, I assume--with said toys. We had a good laugh when they finally called us up to see the spectacle, and since we were planning on moving most of those toys into the new playroom after we finished it up over the weekend, so cleaning up the hallway was a cinch.
The thing about having a devoted play space for a two year old is that it is the playmates, not the room, that make it fun. Duh. Violet's imagination is getting so big and pretending is SO much more fun when you have someone else to dream with you. So, for now, Shawn and I will be spending a lot of time playing in our spare bedroom with Vi. But that's cool. I can't overstate how nice it is to NOT have a 35 lb rocking horse next to my fireplace anymore. Oh, and walking out of the playroom and closing the door on 3 dozen stuffed toys scattered all over the floor ain't too bad either!
