The poor man’s playmat

 

Are you wondering why my baby boy is halfway underneath our coffee table?

 

It’s ‘cause he wants to hang out with these friendly faces!!

Explanation below:

 

Once upon a time I was hanging out my sis-in-law as she tended sweetly to her own two children and our niece, Ms. Charlotte.  I brought over baby James in order to distract her from her duties and to preserve my sanity.  While we were chatting and sorta-kinda watching the kids, I noticed that  JP had a thing for Charlotte’s playmat. It looked something like this:

Except, it was nicer and had better things hanging from it.  Anyways, it was one of the MANY baby items I deemed unnecessary when stocking up for James.  But as I watched him kick happily underneath it and babble to the hanging mirror I experienced a surge of guilt for depriving my son of a toy that seemed good for his morale and developmental milestones.

 

A couple days later, my mom, perhaps feeling sorry for the lack of stimulation hanging from James’ car seat handle, taped a yellow smiley face to the top of it.  Actually to quote her, I believe she said “Wait! Don’t leave. I’m going to make a craft for his carseat”  Then I watched her cut out a circle in a yellow sheet of paper and use a black pen to make the smile and eyes.  Little man loves it!! He stares, smiles at, raises his eyebrows and babbles to that little smiley face. 

 

A couple days later, again…James was pretty grumpy after the obligatory tummy time.  I laid him on his back and dangled different toys for him to look at and as my arm got tired, that play mat guilt returned. So, inspired by my mom, I made a simple little playmat for him under our coffee table.  It is his new favorite spot, and even allows me to give him his acid reflux medicine with out much drama.

 

File this one in ‘Having a baby doesn’t have to be expensive…’