ripping things off the walls

"Oooaaaaaghhh!"  Thump thump thump thump, riiiiiiiiip!   

That's the sound of Elise crawling around the house, tearing pictures off the wall.  Ever since Elise was a newborn, I've been hanging pictures at her level along the walls.  She's enjoyed looking at cool calendar pages, postcards from faraway lands, and photos of herself, family, and friends.  

This was all fine and dandy until Elise became mobile.  Then, the pictures started coming off the walls.  Within seconds, they were crumpled, torn, and soaking wet.  While I cheered Elise's dexterity, I also mourned all the cool pictures we were going through, and worried about the ink and paper that was being ingested. 

That is, until I busted out the laminator.  I had forgotten about that thing!  When I was teaching, I used it all the time.

Anyway, I laminated a selection of photos - I tried to choose ones that were fairly close up, and showed Elise working in her environment or interacting with friends and family.  I rounded off all the sharp corners when I cut them out of the laminating plastic.

Once they were laminated and cut out, I stuck small pieces of sticky back velcro on the back's of the photos - I used the rough, hook side.

Then, I stuck larger pieces of sticky back velcro in various places around the house - I used the soft, loop side.

I can easily stick pictures all over the house this way, and Elise LOVES discovering them and pulling them off.  She'll spend a good portion of the morning crawling all around the house, looking at pictures.  It's so much fun to hear her squeal in delight when she discovers a picture of herself doing something fun.  Plus, when the velcro pulls apart, it makes a really satisfying ripping sound.

I keep laminating more photos and rotating them around to keep it interesting for Elise.  It would also be fun to laminate other small pictures, like magazine images of people and animals.  Eventually, Elise will be able to put them back on the walls herself, but in the meantime, it only takes me a few seconds to do it - and that's important!