Baby Environment

Babies are tactile. In the beginning they can hardly see. They can focus further and further away over the first few months. But they primarily want to touch, grab, and taste everything. Surrounding a baby with things they can touch, grab, and stick in or against their mouths seems like the best way to stimulate their senses, and through their senses, their mind.

I want to build a mobile. Bold colors and stripes. Natural shapes and textures, preferably natural objects. Hanging, several layers deep, more and more intricate things further away.

Some way to get the baby up to counter level while we cook, which is one of the only things we really do with our hands around the house, and involves all sorts of interesting colors, smells, and motion, and it could play with (stick in its mouth) scraps of food.

Some environment at ground level for crawling around in that has features. For example, a sand box (or dirt box, with finer dirt) with pieces of wood, large polished stones, shells, etc. Find the fine line between things it can't choke on and lots of different, handle-able things. I told El today about my brilliant idea for the baby room: make the whole thing a giant sandbox, mix in some bentonite clay, and you've got a tactile floor/giant catbox. No need for diapers, just scoop it out!

Alternatively, sheepskin rugs, leather, polished bones, etc.

Life in the house. I now know what a cat is worth when it's the only non-human living thing in many homes, especially cats that put up with a little abuse from kids. What other life can we bring in? How can we create (or simulate) a living environment, an ecosystem? Houseplants? Other animals? Rabbits? How about a way that chickens can come into a part of the house? A little chicken door into a little indoor chicken run....