Mila’s Busy Board

A few weeks ago was Mila’s first birthday. Rather than giving her a store-bought gift, Kim suggested that we made her a busy board. It seemed like a good idea so we decided to go with it.

There were several moments in the process where we regretted making that decision. But we’re also both too stubborn to just give up. It took more time than we wanted, but seeing how Mila loves to ring the bell, spin the record, unbuckle the belt, and so on, in the end, we are very happy we took the time to make this.

The process

I first went to go buy an offcut piece of wood of about 100x90cm. We then collected a mix of new activities and recyclables to put on the board. After mapping out those items, we used paint we had left from the nursery at our previous place and used those colours to block off sections on the board.

Finally we added all the elements. We opted mostly for using screws to add them as Mila has some serious pulling strength and glue or tape would’ve just not survived her attacks.

Her favourite activities?

The activities Mila loves the most are:

1. Opening the little door. We taped a picture of both of us winking in it. She loves looking at it.
2. Dropping a pingpong ball down the drain pipe. She can do this on repeat for several times in a row.
3. Opening an old pill box. A few of those have screws inside (where I attached it to the board) and Mila loves finding those again.

🎵 Written while listening to Trice’s Horizons / East