the ball pit

if you're my friend on facebook, you saw the picture of ben sitting in his mini ball pit. i actually got that idea from my fav mom blog: rookie moms. they suggested putting plastic balls in a pack n play. i told my mother in law to keep an eye out for plastic balls when she was out shopping and a few days later, she came over with a few bags of balls! i set up the playpen in our dining room and poured the balls in - i was pumped. i put ben in and he was totally distraught. he hated it. i left it set up for a few days thinking that he might get used to the idea but after putting him in it a few times, he never warmed up to the idea. i cleaned it up and put away the playpen. i started feeling like that was a really silly idea anyways - i mean, why would i want to have my playpen set up all the time anyways? and then where am i supposed to store these balls?

a few weeks later, ben was climbing in and out of our ottoman that was filled with his toys. i was wishing that the toys didn't have so many sharp edges and such when it occured to me that this would be the perfect ball pit! we emptied the toys and now ben plays in the ottoman daily. plus it's a place to store the balls!

we hooked the top onto the edge of the ottoman and made it a slide.