About half way through this past week, I asked Henry if he wanted to go to tot school and he fell into a heaping tantrum on the floor. But, he wasn't crying about not wanting to go to tot school, he was upset about having to go to the basement.
It's finally summer here in Minnesota and the sunshine and warmth feels so good after months of snow and cold. And, I've noticed Henry really isn't even playing in our basement playroom as much -- he prefers the upstairs sunroom. So, at that moment, it became clear -- I needed to move tot school. No one, including me, wanted to spend a sunny afternoon in the dark basement.
Since Henry moved to his Montessori toddler room, the old nursery has been sitting unused with the exception of his changing table/dresser which we still use for diaper changes. The room has a beautiful new Ikea expedit shelf I picked up at Goodwill for $10 and the other expedit shelf we had when it was Henry's room.
The plan all along has been to make that room the nursery for our future babies, but since that is not necessary {and may never be} I decided we are moving tot school up there for the summer. If I do get pregnant, we will move back downstairs this winter. Otherwise, we will make the change permanent, and take down the crib.
Once I moved the letter M tot school trays, sensory bin, and other activities upstairs, Henry happily spent almost 2 hours at tot school following his tantrum. Everyday since then, I've had to pry him kicking and screaming from the space when we've been running late for other appointments. Now, that's the tantrum I like to deal with.
The extra shelving allowed me to put out our normal tot school trays on top, but also all of the additional activities that I've planned for the week on the bottom shelves. This way, Henry could choose when and how often he wanted to do these activities, which was a welcomed change for him.
You can see details about our Letter M, part 2 trays here.
