So Long Man Cave!

Over the weekend we finally packed away Little Smiling Man's bouncer/exersaucer.  In all reality we could have done it a couple of months ago since it's been quite some time since he'd let us put him in it, but it's had a few extra uses for him so we waited.  First, since he learned to pull to standing he's enjoyed playing with the toys while standing next to it.  Second, since almost the day we brought it out he's loved playing under and behind it.  So we dubbed the bouncer Little Smiling Man's "Man Cave"! 

Often, he'd pull a few toys underneath and sit there playing, occasionally peeking out to check out what the rest of the family was doing.  Sometimes he'd just go down there to hang out and possibly to escape Mini Muffin's attentions(?).  Other times, he'd head behind the bouncer to play with whatever he'd squirrelled back there days before.  However, his favourite thing to do in his Man Cave was to play with and disassemble the foam letter tiles we had stacked behind it.  Mini Muffin even joined in at times, treating them as little puzzles.  Did you know that the outline of a foam tile 8 also makes an excellent crown?  Or that the center piece of an O makes a great play phone?

Since it's tricky for adults to manoeuvre the Man Cave, we generally just let it be, and soon there was a massive mess of foam letters back there.  Every few weeks we'd tidy them up, but generally they were just left as a jumbled pile for playing.  Below is a picture of Little Smiling Man from before Christmas playing behind his Man Cave.  The tiles had recently been straightened so there's still a semblance of a pile - picture them in their normal state, as one big mound of disassembled tiles.  Fun for kids and rather unsightly for everyone else!

Playing with letters in the Man Cave

Post Man Cave - easily accessible and untouched!

Sunday night, after the bouncer was packed away and the kids were in bed, my husband and I decided to at long last tidy up the letters.  Since every single tile had been disassembled there were quite a few to put together.  I'd find a matching pair and my husband would put them together and stack them.  We joked that it was a bit like being a Sesame Street Muppet - we had to tidy up and organise our letters before bed.  To us it sounded like a task worthy of Bert and Ernie!

Now that everyone has easy access to that corner, it seems to have lost its allure to Little Smiling Man.  The tiles have remained untouched for five whole days!  However, I suspect he'll rediscover them at some point and we'll have the same old mess; just with easier access to clean it up.  Who knows, maybe Little Smiling Man will even return to his Man Cave someday when the bouncer is returned to the corner for his future sibling.