Adelaida's Cabinet

Adelaida tests out her cabinet ... she fits!

A few months ago, we realized that we had a challenge to deal with in the kitchen: Adelaida was fascinated by the dogs' water bowls. She was mobile and always crawled directly to the water bowls. We wanted to keep her away from them for two reasons: because they were the dogs' bowls and we didn't want Adelaida to get in the pups' way when they needed water; and because the standing water of the bowls was a drowning hazard.

We first tried the "redirect" method of keeping her away from the bowls: every time she crawled to the bowls, we picked her up and put her somewhere else. This worked for a few weeks while she was not a very good crawler, but Adelaida soon decided this was a game and laughed when we moved her, then immediately went back to the bowls to play the game again.

Adelaida sits happily in her cabinet

The real problem was that we didn't have much in the kitchen for Adelaida to play with: she didn't have any toys in the kitchen or sunroom and we would occasionally give her a wooden spoon to play with, but the wooden spoon was kept in a drawer and she couldn't get to it herself.

the half-deep shelf in the cabinet is a great place for Adelaida to store her kitchen toys

About the same time, Adelaida learned that she could open the kitchen cabinets and delighted in doing so whenever she could. She was particularly fond of the cabinet directly under the sink, which is where we keep the trash can as well as potentially hazardous chemicals like dish soap and dishwasher detergent.

It was becoming more and more difficult to have Adelaida in the kitchen while we were cooking or cleaning up.

Adelaida's cabinet

About a month ago, Dale came up with a brilliant idea: let Adelaida have a cabinet all her own, one she could put some toys in and open and close as much as she wanted! We had just the cabinet -- it was empty anyway and was on the kitchen-table-side of the peninsula rather than the kitchen-side of the peninsula, so she could play there and stay out of our way while we worked in the kitchen. We stocked this cabinet with some special kitchen toys that she only gets to play with in the kitchen -- two wooden spoons, a plastic spoon, two plastic buckets, and a tea tin. With that select of things to bang with and things to bang on, she can create a wide variety of sounds!

Adelaida is happy in her cabinet

Adelaida just loves her cabinet. Whenever we are in the kitchen and she isn't eating, she goes directly to her cabinet, opens it up, and either crawls inside to play or pulls out some spoons and walks around with them. And she does both with the biggest smile on her face!

We don't ever have to tell her to stay away from the dogs' water bowls anymore and she rarely opens any other cabinets in the kitchen. After all, why would she open a cabinet with a trash can or boring muffin tins when she can open her very own cabinet that she can crawl right into?

Adelaida stands by her cabinet

Now that she has a cabinet, she has been more interested in drawers -- Adelaida often takes the spoons and tea tin from her cabinet, walks them over to the kitchen desk, puts them in a drawer (the middle drawer, which is just the right size for her), and picks up two things from the drawer to take back to her cabinet. I think our next job may be to empty one drawer in our kitchen desk and stock it with more fun toys for Adelaida.