A-door-able solution!

As you may have read in an earlier post  (or know if you are one of our cherished friends) - we have a wonderful little daughter who is diagnosed with "The A".  What you may not know, is that many children on the spectrum suffer from serious sleep problems.  We happen to be one of those lucky families!  (lil sarcasm - humor keeps me sane, I think?)  (BTW - sleep deprivation can cause verbal stupidity, consider that while reading this blog...lol.)  

Anyway - back to the matter at hand.  "Necessity is the Mother of Invention", isn't that how the saying goes?  Well, here is my invention...  Ta dah! 

From the loft into Sara's room...

Open door...

Sara's veiw...

 A doggies eye view...

I have actually been working on this little project for some time now, and as you can see, it still isn't quite finished.  I just couldn't wait any longer to post it!  Mostly because I feel like my poor blog is just sitting here post-less.  Well...and because I wanted to show off my idea. he he :)  I still need to caulk the nail holes, fill the hugemongus (isn't that a word?) gaps, and paint.  Then I am going to hang a small curtain and I have a few amazing accessories I will save for the final reveal! 

I cut out the middle section of the door around the center panels with a Dremmel.  Thank goodness the trim covered that handy work!  LOL  The door was hollow, so I had to put 2x4's inside and nail thru the door to keep them in place in order to give some substance to the door, so I could frame the window and put on the trim.  Then I made a square from with the cross pieces in the center.  (It's a good thing we plan to tile in the bathroom soon - as I shot one nail through and nailed the frame to my floor...LOL).  I popped it into place, placed trim around it and voila...

Ok...now I must give credit where it is due.  This is where the idea was sparked - one of Sara's favorite spots...the indoor bounce house we like frequent called Jumping Beans.

"Pay no attention to the girl behind the green window"....lol.  This is the little cut out window for parents to see what the children are doing in the play room.

Some background on the project -

Back to "The A" - we use melatonin for our daughter and it does help some, but she still has very poor sleep patterns.  After about 5 years of sleeping, on average, 3 hrs a night - we had to come up with some way of making sure she was safe and could play in her room without waking us, because it was taking a serious toll on us both physically and mentally.  It was suggested that we lock her door, but I thought about how upset I would feel to be locked in a room, unable to see what was going on outside, and not knowing if my Mommy and Daddy were still out there.  So you can imagine how happy I was when this little idea popped into my head.  Cuteness with a great purpose!  "Honey, where is the SAW?"

Now - we can hear her, she can hear us, she can call to us if there is a problem.  And (how cute is this?) when she does wake up, our little dog goes back and forth to her door and us like he is checking on her or telling us "she's up-she's up...let her out!" 

Please feel to take my idea and use it to keep your child safe and preserve your precious sleep.  I will be happy to give you better instructions if you would like, feel free to contact me.  And please...if you have friends that have children who have "The Big A", be understanding when they seem to have lost their marbles.  Remember the brain loss you suffered the first year after having children, that is what every day is like for us.  A wonderfu idea, would be to offer to help them with this little project.  Special Thanks to Aunt Mandie, for demonstrating the window for us.  :)  Isn't she Ahhhdorable too!