Tuesday the boys had an extra day off school and, not
thinking, I accepted a meeting request that morning. Thankfully, my mother-in-law was available to
spend some time with the rascals while I did boring Mommy work. My MIL had just purchased a mini-greenhouse
kit that needed to be built. So, while I
was discussing support groups and IEP trainings, Asher was in jumbo tinker-toy
heaven as he, almost single handedly put together the greenhouse for Yaya. I was pretty impressed. That boy has an engineer’s mind and he LOVES
to follow diagram instructions to build lego sets or any other type of
buildable set. He will often create his
own diagram instructions before embarking on a unique creation.
Anyway…I arrived to pick him up and he was in the middle of
building the thing. I quickly saw there
was no way I could tear him away from the task, plus it was a big help to
Laura. He got it all put together and we
ported it outside to the right spot where he put on the finishing touches.
That afternoon at home, I mentioned that I wanted to build a
raised dog bed for the…dogs (of course!).
I have a portable kennel for Bagel which Ozzy has decided is fun to chew
on. I also noticed he kept knocking it
over on its side, making it impossible to get inside. I finally figured out why—he likes to lay on
top of it. I had been noticing that Ozzy
really likes height—he wants to be up on anything raised. So I figured some doggy bunk beds would
replace the destroyed kennel for Bagel and give Ozzy the lift he was looking
for. Of course, Asher was ecstatic for
another opportunity to BUILD!
I had a few pallets I collected last summer with grand hopes
to build something out of them. Two were
smaller sized and I thought they were the perfect size to frame the bed, so we
went to work breaking one down for lumber.
We used the other one, minus a few support boards, as the base of the
top bunk. The hardest part was breaking
down the pallets but once we had all our materials together, it didn’t take too
long to assemble. Thankfully, my grandpa
has a scrap wood pile where a found a small section of 2x4 (I only had three
from the pallet) so I could have four legs on the bunk and some great slats to help enclose the sides.
The finished product came out much better than I
expected. It weighed a metric ton! But, I
wanted it heavy so Ozzy won’t push it around and use it to get on stuff he
shouldn’t. After strong-arming the thing
into the backyard and porch where the dogs sleep, I introduced the new
bed. Ozzy was immediately on top.
As it turns out…both the dogs like the top
bunk and Bagel is on it more often than Ozzy.
Sometimes I find Ozzy sleeping below while Bagel’s stretched out
above. Oh well…I’m still very stoked
that we built it, that it came out so good, and that the dogs like it. Asher was a super helper and it was great
bonding time for us. He desperately
loves learning how things work, are built, and function. PLUS, he needs the heavy work for his proprioceptive
sensory issues.
It was a good day.
No comments:
Post a Comment