Lately Gideon has been playing with his cars a lot. Trucks. Caravans. Motors. Tractors. Excavators. Etc etc. You get the idea. But when I looked around his room, a lot of space was still occupied by things he plays with much less often, such as his wooden play shop.
When I asked him if it might be time to pass on his shop to another child, the answer was 'no'. Very few moments he would still play with it.
Yet it stuck to me. Couldn't I come up with something for all his cars? We just got a lot more for him again.. and a certain storage place would be nice.
My brain turned to this issue and put some things together. What if the storage space would also be a playground? I sketched something on a piece of paper... showed it to Gideon.. and he was immediatly convinced. Oh yeah, now the shop was allowed to leave... because he loved the idea of this garage-shelf-system!
I had a short consult with Hendrik and Joas. Joas also saw it happen and Hendrik thought that Joas could máke it too. And so it happened! Joas made what I had in mind... we discussed how it could be even better and how it would actually become.. Joas looked for material and saw and drilled.. sanded.. we tried it out.. it seemed to work.
Then Gideon and I painted it together. First properly with primer, then the color of his choice: red! Luckily we still had a rest of that. I noticed how well he already did this at the age of 4! Driven to get things tidy, he paid close attention to what he was doing. And as proud as a peacock of course!
When it was dry enough, Hendrik put it on the wall, where Joas and I had already prepared some stripes where it had to be hung... and voila!
Behold and see Gideon's own garage-shelf-system here! With a loose shelf that can take the cars from the floor to the first shelf... and then between the 1st and 2nd shelf... and then to the 3rd.. and back... and again. He loves it!
And I enjoy this collaboration. A real familyproject!
If you just look calmly and honestly at every step... see what is possible and what is not.. indicate what you can and cannot do and what you want.. then you will automatically move on, is my experience. I love this!
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