Child-friendly kitchen!

On my main blog, I talk a lot about my house, but I've never actually shown you the room D and I spend the most time in- my kitchen! We rent the house from a baker, so it's massive and has the biggest oven I've ever seen outside Masterchef.

Yes, those are my feet you can see!

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen- my sewing machine is in there, I bake, make lots of cups of tea and now D is eating proper food, I'm often making things for him. One of the challenges we've had since he's become more aware of his surroundings is how to make the kitchen more child-friendly and interesting.

One way I've done this is by decorating the cupboards with the postcards I've received as part of the Postcrossing project. By doing this, I've made a brightly coloured, fun and ever-changing mini-art gallery that seems to be perfect for capturing a five-month old's attention. I like to spend time chatting to D and pointing out pictures. Although he can't yet understand what I'm saying, I like to think I'm helping him learn something interesting.

When D is in the kitchen with me, he tends to be in his high chair. He loves his food and he also loves being able to see what's going on, so it gives him the best of both worlds! It's also good for him to sit with me and his dad at dinnertime, watching us eat and learning about mealtimes. It also means he's constantly eyeing up our food...

 

What I'm really looking forward to, though, is when D is big enough to get involved in more activities- I'm dying to buy him an apron so we can get into the really fun (and messy!) stuff like painting and baking, which will drive Benn mad, but it'll be lovely to have a partner in crime for that sort of thing. After all, no-one tuts when a toddler has cookie dough in their hair.

Now, though, the challenge is to make the kitchen a fun yet safe place. I've no doubt that D will be crawling soon and, as he's my son, he's very nosy. This could be interesting/dangerous (delete as appropriate) to say the least. So far, my strategy involves moving a playmat and his favourite robot toy into a spot as far away from harm as possible and buying up the world's supply of child locks. What could possibly go wrong?

Any advice on childproofing welcome!

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