My mom’s friend Linda gave us this old highchair to keep at my parents’ house. We never loved it as a highchair – Jasper would keep sliding out of it until rather recently due to the awkward 90 degree angle of the seat. ( It is also HUGE and looks like it’s made from an airline seat circa 1960!) But recently, we discovered it’s true value – as an art table!

The giant tray with it’s upturned lip is perfect for keeping pencils and crayons from rolling off and the best part is that if he draws off of the paper it’s no big deal – unlike when he used to color on the coffee table and I used to have to spread extra paper underneath to protect it.

Just an idea if you happen to have an extra from a friend or a relative, or if you come across a really cheap one at a garage sale.  Or as a use for your baby’s own high chair if he/she has graduated to being pulled up to the table in a booster seat.

Also, I have to put in a good word for colored pencils as an alternative to crayons – no chance of melting or getting crushed on the floor or carpet :)

Hope you all had a great weekend – snowpocalypse or not!

First we bought a little premade plexiglass strip like this one that is meant to go over a part of the cable box to keep baby from pressing the buttons. That worked ok for the cable box, but then Jasper got obsessed with pressing the eject button on the DVD player.

So, onto the next solution:  A piece of plexiglass cut to the dimensions of our TV stand (you can get sheets of plexi at lowes or home depot) that protected the entire contents of the shelf below the TV:

This was effective at protecting the components on the shelf, but Jasper soon diverted his attention to the buttons on the TV itself, turning the TV on and off at will, shaking his head and yelling “no, no, no” as he did so (repeating our constant but ineffective choruses of no!)

On to the final and effective solution:

Strip meant to cover VCR moved up to the TV itself!

He still occasionally wanders over and tries to pull the plexi away from the TV, but overall this has cut the fun factor down to where he rarely bothers and we can finally watch TV again in peace!