A Coat Closet Remodel

We have a teeny-tiny, oddly-shaped coat closet near our front door. Think a triangle that you can just barely stand in upright. It had a wire shelf with a bar for hanging coats about two feet long. The bar went from the front of the closet to the back (rather than horizontally, so that hangers and coats in the front would obscure the ones farther back making them inaccessible). The bottom of the closet was a foot-high pile of shoes - some of which my children hadn't been able to wear for at least two years.

I detested going in the closet. It was almost unusable. I hated digging in an old pile of dirty shoes for the one pair I needed. I started having the children put their coats on a nearby seat instead of in the closet and their shoes in the hall so I could find them quickly. This just contributed to clutter. Not an ideal solution.

I came up with an ideal solution. Tear it all out and have my husband install hook style coat racks on the walls of the closet at varying heights for shoes and coats. It wasn't supposed to take more than half an our to tear out the old stuff and stick in the new ones....

As usual I vastly underestimated. It took two hours just to sort through the years of stuff we had crammed in there. Then coat racks were prohibitively expensive. Who knew those things cost $30 each? So my husband bought individual hooks and boards at a home improvement store and made his own. That took... well... a long time. Several hours at least. And then there was something about finding studs that I didn't pay a lot of attention to. I was busy entertaining children.

So, it is only half done. We ran out of screws, and hooks, and boards. But this is what it looks like so far. I LOVE it. It makes me very happy. The children love it. We all actually enjoy hanging up our coats and shoes when we come in the house. Eventually the baskets for hats and mittens will be hanging on the wall instead of on the floor, but it a wonderful, small-child friendly solution to a coat closet. I highly recommend it.

(The picture just shows the bottom half of the closet, but the top has another row of similar hooks. There will be an additional row of shoe hooks on the left below the current row and right below the children's coats. The baskets for hats/scarves/mittens will go above the children's coat hooks on the right.)

Non-Hallmark Milestones Pt. 2

Speaking of non-hallmark milestones, we had another one. Doesn't everyone look forward to the first time their young child almost gets run over by a minivan?

We were leaving speech. I've taught the children to wait until I open the minivan doors (via a button on my key fob) and then walk on the line to their door. This keeps them safe because I don't open their doors until I'm sure the way is clear. Walking the line keeps them close to the car just in case.

Ava completely abandoned both of my safety checks. The children were racing along the sidewalk to see who could get to the van first. The cars were parked perpendicular to the sidewalk. Ava just ran right into the empty parking spot on her side of the van. She didn't walk the line. She didn't wait for me to open the door. And, of course, there was a minivan pulling in to that empty (except for the body of my small child) parking spot.

I screamed, but I would have absolutely been too late. Thankfully, the woman driving the minivan was paying attention. She had stopped to let us across the crosswalk and was apparently watching the children race along the sidewalk to our van. She stopped as soon as Ava ran into the parking spot.

Once my heartbeat slowed and I managed to unwrap my arms from around her body, I had a talk with Ava about object lessons and how they applied to this particular situation. We very clearly reviewed our safety procedures and talked about how they are even more important when the spots next to our car are empty.

I'm ready for a hiatus from the non-hallmark milestones. Really. I am.


Somehow, this story reminds me of another non-hallmark milestone: remember that time my almost-5 year old tried to find out how many marbles could fit in his mouth?

Not all milestones are hallmark moments...

I've been breathlessly awaiting the first time my son would...

You know those milestones... first smile, first step, first laugh, first word, first "I love you," first mumbled "whatever" Hmm. Well not that last one so much.

My newly minted five year old responded to a perfectly polite request for him to hang his coat up in the closet with a "whatever" mumbled under his breath. It was delivered with perfect sitcom accuracy in insolent tone. Where on earth did he pick that up?

I'll admit. I overreacted. Now it was like I was acting the sitcom moment. I, completely on autopilot, responded with, "What did you just say to me, Michael ______ _______?!?" He instantly knew I was pissed and that he had committed some major transgression. He just couldn't figure out what he had done. He froze in his sulky tracks and looked back over his shoulder at me inquiringly.

I repeated my incredulous "What did you just say to me?" question. He responded with a much more tentative "whatever." I vehemently explained that using that word was unacceptable in our house and that it was extremely rude and I never wanted to hear it again.

He wandered over for a hug and some reassurance and looked up at me and asked, "What does that word mean, Mama?" -- He didn't even know what it meant!!

In retrospect, he was experimenting. He had heard the term used at some point (possibly at preschool?), and made some fairly accurate assumptions, based on context, about when and how to use a new vocabulary word. He just didn't really understand the specifics. He decided to try it out at what seemed to him to be an appropriate moment.

I explained that using the word "whatever" tells the person you're talking to that you don't care about what they are saying and that using that word hurts people's feelings and is extremely rude.

I'm pretty sure he won't use the word again for a while and that he mostly understands why. Still, not a conversation I was expecting to have with my five year old.