{"id":1377,"date":"2011-03-28T13:59:43","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T18:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/?p=1377"},"modified":"2011-03-28T13:59:43","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T18:59:43","slug":"learning-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/28\/learning-tower\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Tower"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Historically, Griffin has been quite the helper in the kitchen. Well, maybe <em><strong>helper<\/strong><\/em> isn&#8217;t quite the right word; maker-of-messes-and-interested-in-doing-whatever-I&#8217;m-doing-in-the-kitchen&#8230;helper. He&#8217;s also a monkey and climbs on everything and anything, and while his sense of balance is really quite amazing, he&#8217;s had a few tumbles in the kitchen off of chairs and step stools that have made me think that this nifty invention called a <a title=\"Learning Tower\" href=\"http:\/\/www.littlepartners.com\/products\/The-Learning-Tower.html\">Learning Tower<\/a> is just what we need. Basically, it&#8217;s a sturdy platform with railings on all sides that enables Griffin to get to counter height to watch and help without me worrying, in addition to making sure he doesn&#8217;t touch the hot stove, sharp knives, glasses, coffee maker, toaster, etc., that he&#8217;ll fall off a wobbly step stool or chair. We have the room for one in our kitchen now and I&#8217;ve been coveting one ever since I found out that they exist. Only thing is, they cost over $200.<\/p>\n<p>Enter Grandpa Jeff.<\/p>\n<p>My dad&#8217;s a handy guy. I have lots of memories of making things with him, and while I wasn&#8217;t totally into the graph paper and Pythagorean theorem, I did enjoy making things and felt a lot of satisfaction out of the many projects we&#8217;ve done together. I mentioned the Learning Tower to him on a recent visit, and he thought he could tackle the project sometime this summer. A quick &#8220;DIY Learning Tower&#8221; Google search turned up a surprising number of plans, many of which seemed even better than the original. I was psyched to know we&#8217;d soon have one for Griffin to climb on!<\/p>\n<p>Well, Grandpa Jeff came by our house today on his way Up North and had a surprise for us in the back of his car: a<a title=\"DIY Learning Tower Plans\" href=\"http:\/\/ana-white.com\/2010\/12\/helping-tower.html\"> handmade learning tower<\/a>! He said he just couldn&#8217;t wait until summer to make it and knew that Griffin would put it to good use immediately. Griffin knew exactly what to do with it and climbed up to do a little dance on the platform. We are both so excited to use it and I am grateful to have such a handy (and thoughtful) dad, Pythagorean theorem and all.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1381\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1381\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0295.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1381\" title=\"DSC_0295\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0295.jpg?resize=300%2C199&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0295.jpg?resize=300%2C199&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0295.jpg?resize=1024%2C680&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0295.jpg?w=948&amp;ssl=1 948w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0295.jpg?w=1422&amp;ssl=1 1422w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1381\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Griffin watches &quot;Grm-pa&quot; use the drill to attach the last of the legs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1382\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1382\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0298.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1382\" title=\"DSC_0298\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0298.jpg?resize=300%2C199&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0298.jpg?resize=300%2C199&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0298.jpg?resize=1024%2C680&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0298.jpg?w=948&amp;ssl=1 948w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0298.jpg?w=1422&amp;ssl=1 1422w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1382\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A little snack for all the hard work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1383\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1383\" style=\"width: 199px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0300.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1383\" title=\"DSC_0300\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0300.jpg?resize=199%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0300.jpg?resize=199%2C300&amp;ssl=1 199w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0300.jpg?resize=680%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 680w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0300.jpg?w=2000&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0300.jpg?w=948&amp;ssl=1 948w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0300.jpg?w=1422&amp;ssl=1 1422w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1383\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&quot;Yippie! I can reach the sink!&quot;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1384\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1384\" style=\"width: 199px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0303.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1384\" title=\"DSC_0303\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0303.jpg?resize=199%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0303.jpg?resize=199%2C300&amp;ssl=1 199w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0303.jpg?resize=680%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 680w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0303.jpg?w=2000&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0303.jpg?w=948&amp;ssl=1 948w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/DSC_0303.jpg?w=1422&amp;ssl=1 1422w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1384\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Griffin dances on his new tower.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Historically, Griffin has been quite the helper in the kitchen. Well, maybe helper isn&#8217;t quite the right word; maker-of-messes-and-interested-in-doing-whatever-I&#8217;m-doing-in-the-kitchen&#8230;helper. He&#8217;s also a monkey and climbs on everything and anything, and while his sense of balance is really quite amazing, he&#8217;s had a few tumbles in the kitchen off of chairs and step stools that have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/28\/learning-tower\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Learning Tower<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[28,79],"class_list":["post-1377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-griffin","tag-grandpa-jeff","tag-griffin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1377"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1388,"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377\/revisions\/1388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stoccoroy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}