OK, so we are going to take one area of the living room and make it climbing friendly. After several suggestions from various people and discussing it with our speech therapist, we decided it's a good idea. I'll get back to that in a minute.

The speech therapist mentioned that his climbing on things he knows he shouldn't is a way to get some attention from us. (also goes back to him not speaking yet) She wasn't suggesting he's doing it to manipulate us or anything along those lines, just that he does it when he wants some extra attention b/c he knows we will go over to him and lift him off of it and so on and so forth. Does that make sense? Could that be why he's doing it? I mean it does make sense to me, he gives the biggest smiles when he sees us coming over to him to remove him from whatever danger he's attempting. So she has also suggested making a Connor safe area somewhere, that he can jump, climb, tear apart, whatever.. without us constantly hovering saying no, that's dangerous or whatever. I told her I feel like I'm saying NO to him all day long and she said he wants the attention? :rolleyes:

Anyway, back to the safe climbing space for Connor, any suggestion? We are actually looking at getting him a jump-o-lene. He loves jumping and we can make it into a ball pit with the balls I got at the thrift store. Or bringing in our little tykes slide/swing thing for him to climb on indoors. She also suggested simple things like getting a big box and lots of blankets and pillows for him to climb on and through. Or piling up pillows and blankets for him to climb on. She said to rotate it.. like for a few weeks have one arrangement, then when he starts getting bored with it, try something new. Anyone created a safe climbing area for your monkey baby?? ;) This is going to drastically reduce the size of our living room, but that's fine by me.. as long as it's something that will keep him from climbing on the windowsill and other dangerous places!

Well, we have a big backyard - and it's full of stuff to climb on. We put a tree house in the trees, next to it are swings and a climbing rope. I've always wanted a climbing net up to the tree house. Yes, this is for our big kids, but I always had toddler sized versions.

They have one of those little tykes play houses and they were always up on the roof (at 2 and 3). From there, they could swing down on the rope tied to the tree.

Oh and the sandbox is a must! Works just like playdough for relaxing active kids.

My kids are always up on the barn roofs too!

I've never been willing to sacrifice my living room - after all, we only have 1000 sq ft of house and 2 acres of yard ;)

Good luck with your jungle gym - how old is your monkey?
Melinda

Well, we ended up getting him this jumpelene.. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00007JXV3/qid=1051140037/br=1-10/ref=br_lf_t_10//103-1264760-0795839?v=glance&s=toys&n=295058 which he loves. He climbs in there and bounces and loves playing with the balls in it. (I have a ton of ball pit balls I bought at the thrift store) We have a little tikes slide/swing combo out back, but he's getting too big for it. We are going to buy him a bigger slide probably next payday if we have the extra money. I've been trying to take him to the park every evening after school lets out. (the school playground is the best one here on base) so that gets alot of climbing out of him b/c he loves climbing on the jungle gyms. He's still climbing things at home, but it's starting to slow down a little bit. Everytime he tries to climb up onto the end table (where he can now grab things off the entertainment center) I move him to the ball pit to play in there. So hopefully after enough redirection, he'll grow bored with my telling him the ball pit is for climbing and stop climbing everything else.. LOL I wish we had a nice back yard to put stuff up for him to climb on, but we have a huge hill in the backyard and it's not even that big. We really want to get him a jungle gym/swingset, but we have nowhere level to keep it. (unless we put it in the front yard, but housing would frown on that.. LOL)

Oh and he's almost 20 months now.. :)

My DS was (and often still is) a climber. We too, had to move all the chairs out of the kitchen during the day so he wouldn't climb up on the table and dance around.

I think it's helped that I have somewhat lax standards for what's okay to climb on. This really is only a problem when we get to other people's houses... But, our DS is allowed to jump from the coffee table to the couch, or coffee table to the floor (our coffeetable is wood, not glass). Another mama I know who had a klutzy jumper put a large bean bag chair in front of her couch and told her DD she could jump into the bean bag because when she was jumping directly to the floor she wasn't landing very well at all. We also allow bed jumpoing right now. My neighbor has an air mattress constantly inflated in an unused room for jumping (she had it out for company nearly a year ago and hasn't been able to put it away since!). It's on the floor, and kids LOVE it!

As for the speech therapist's thoughts, they DO make complete sense. It's your son getting negative attention because he doesn't think he's getting enough positive attention. SO, he does things he knows you'll react to BECAUSE you react to them. It's like kids who act out in school because then the teacher talks to them. If kids don't think they're getting enough attention, they'll do whatever it takes to get it. Please don't take this as a statement on your parenting... it's just basic psychology.

My son right now is in a throwing stage... everything has to go "wee!" ("wee dat, mama?" no, you may not "wee" the frying pan, but here... go "wee" this nerf ball.) For him everything has to be thrown, with force, up over his head. We're working on which things are okay for throwing inside (nerf, his wool ball, some other softer things) and others that either need to stay low, or can be thrown outside (like his wooden eggs!). SLowly he's getting it. Tho one day he spent nearly 20 minutes throwing his wool ball at the ceiling fan as it spun... now we have deal with what might be okay for throwing in the toy room (with the cathedral ceiling -- like his nerf soccer ball) but NOT okay to throw at the low ceiling fan.

I am worried about what it might be like when the new baby comes and we will be dealing with both having a new baby (and all the time that involves) and being stuck inside more since we're in Phoenix and July/August gets to be 110+. We'll be outside in the early mornings... Good thing we have a pool. I just fear being inside ALL DAY and not having the outside as a release until the sun starts to go down. Ugh.

Good luck!

~Amey

Amey - It's hot in NC here too in the summer and what we do is go outside as soon as we are out of bed! We are generally outside until lunchtime and then everyone takes a long rest.

After rest, we piddle about in the house and read and play till supper and then back outside after supper when it is tolerable again!

Good luck with your new baby and active toddler - I've BTDT LOL!!

I must say that often the 1st and 2nd have totally different personalities, especailly when they are close together!

Melinda