Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Walker transformation

Ben's first walker that we actually purchased ourselves was the Gator (pictured below).  It is a fairly large and heavy walker.  We initially chose it because it works better outside than other walkers we had tried.  (In the end, we ended up also purchasing a Nimbo as his "indoor" walker...mainly due to the messiness of Canadian winters.)
 
Well.  Ben LOVED his Gator.  LOVED it.  But...he has now outgrown it.
 
 
 
There is not a bigger Gator.  The next one up is actually the Crocodile.  And it only comes in Yellow.  Not Red.  And Red is Ben's colour.  He wants EVERYTHING to be red.
 
Regardless, he needed a bigger "outdoor" walker.  So we went ahead and bought the yellow crocodile (used) from his CE Classmate "Sarah".  And he absolutely refused to use it.  REFUSED.  Wouldn't even try it out.  Unless I painted it red.
 


So.  Off I went to the hardware store to find some red spray paint.  Painting it is actually the easy part...it's NOT painting the other parts of it that was the hard part.  Plus I had to remove all the stickers that Sarah had put on it.  It probably took me 2 hours to remove the stickers and then tape up the sections that weren't to be painted.  And about 3 minutes to paint it.

I did 2 coats and then let it dry over night....and then spent probably another hour taking all the tape off.  But doesn't it look awesome?

 
 
And the most important part?  Ben LOVES it.  And very happily goes everywhere with it.  It's now "him".
 
 

18 comments:

  1. Awesome! We have used tape and stickers but not spray paint yet. That would be great though - I do not like the gold Nimbo. How does it do on wood chips (if you've tried)? That is where (my) Daniel has the most difficulty and falls outside.

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  2. The gator and crocodile work fine on wood chips. It actually works really well outdoors on most/all surfaces. The problem that we have is that it is heavy...so Ben has a hard time moving it over grass. I love the Nimbo for indoor use but hate it for outdoors....it gets caught on anything and Ben would fall.

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  3. AWESOME TRANSFORMATION ON THAT WALKER CARY IT LOOKS GREAT

    MELISSA

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  4. That looks great!! James has the Kaye reverse walker and we used duct tape to decorate it. He is going to be needing a new walker soon as well. How does the crocodile do for school?? I really want to try it for James but every PT we have keeps telling me it is too heavy.

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  5. Shoot! Sounds better, but still not perfect. We have a Kaye and a Nimbo (the joys of having a nanny and being disorganized), but the Nimbo is really unstead outside and the poor kid smashed his chin this weekend. The Kaye is a little heavier, but still not great. I'm definitely spray painting the Kaye when he's big enough for the one insurance bought (it's way too big so we're still using one from early intervention

    I was hoping it'd be perfect outside, but Daniel is pretty puny still and the outside of the preschool he's in is 1/2 woodchips, 1/2 grass. I'm hoping to talk to his PT about it and see if he has any good ideas.

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  6. That is toooo cute! And until you posted this, I'd never heard of the Gator, so now that's being added to my "things to look into" list. Right now my daughter uses the green Nimbo (she is thus far not picky about color though that may all change when she gets her talker....) but as others have noted, it really isn't great outdoors (though she uses it that way). Thank you so much for sharing this - I learn so much from other moms! <3

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  7. Mary Ellen - Ben is doing great with the crocodile at school. I have a hard time thinking that it would be too heavy for James...he seems so similar to Ben in terms of abilities! Ben had the gator since he was just 2 years old and it and the crocodile are the same weight...and he never had any trouble with it at all! (actually I'm going to post an old video of Ben using the gator when he was 26 months old on CP Connection on Facebook for you to see).

    Actually, we find the gator and the crocodile to work really well on indoor surfaces too...it may be heavy but it seems to be easier to pull than the Nimbo (similar to the kaye).

    I wonder if anyone near you has one you could try??

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