The background is simple: Leo will turn nine in a few months, and I’ve noticed that as he’s grown older, he’s had more trouble jumping onto furniture, like our bed. To be honest, I think some of it is performative, because if I walk over to lift him up, he suddenly manages to jump up on the bed, or whatever. Even so, he’s a little guy about to turn nine, and, just like me, he’ll need some minor alterations to things to make his ageing easier.
I thought that there was something I could do to help him, and I designed something a kind of steps to but at the foot of the bed. I imagined a three-tier thing with storage in each tier. It’d be strong enough for me to sit on, like wooden the blanket box that’s there right now. However, the Garage of No Return doesn’t have enough room for me to build anything, and I don’t know when that will change.
It was then that I found a four-tier step system (the bottom of the two photos at left; the blanket box I was using before is the top half) that I thought would work. It’s a bit smaller than what I designed, but I thought that the four steps would make it easier for Leo. Each “step” is actually a soft-sided storage box, and each step is attached to the next-smaller step using a zip (aka zipper) on the front and back. The zips were a little tricky to fasten, but assembly was otherwise straightforward
And that was the end of the success. Leo wouldn’t step on any step, and wouldn’t jump onto a high one like he did on the old blanket box (below, right). I tried to lead him up the steps, but his reaction was as if he thought I was trying to hurt him. He didn’t “get” how to walk up stairs. He’s a smart little guy, so this puzzled me—after all, we had stair in the last house we all had together.
Yeah, well, I often forget how much time has passed since then. He lived in that house for 19 months (beginning shortly before his first birthday, and we moved away when he was 19 months old). I can’t remember how often he went up and down stairs at the old house, but we left that house more than six years ago, and we’ve lived in this one-storey house ever since.
I know that it may have nothing to do with his past, but that the small stairs I bought for him may not have felt safe to him. So, I put the old blanket box back with just a blanket on top of it (making the top he jumps onto a centimetre or so lower than it had been).I moved the fancy steps over to the other side of the bed and put some of his toys on higher steps: He’s never tried to get them, not even when I put his favourite toy on it. I think that if the steps were more conventional, he might’ve been more willing to use it—or, at least, not as frightened of it as he seemed to be, but it it what it is.
This means I’m probably back to building something for him. Right now I think it should have a wide lower step for him to step onto, but I’ll have to create a temporary one to see if he uses it. We’ll see. The point is, just as I have various plans to make this house better for ageing me, I’ll make changes to make things easier for an ageing Leo, too. This particular attempt just wasn’t a good one. Oh, well—onward.
No comments:
Post a Comment