And then you try to do at home in general have about a 50% success rate. There are even entire buzzfeed lists dedicated to Pinterest fails and they are really funny! Normally the photos of the failures are captioned “Nailed it” as the exact opposite is true. I love when people air their DIY failings because Pinterest really does create unrealistic expectations.
The stair slide was about a 50% success in and of itself. I managed to get the cardboard cut and secured. The problem was that I wasn’t working with short carpeted stairs, instead we have tall hardwood-on-concrete stairs. I also needed thicker cardboard; like the kind they use to pack refrigerators. But not to be defeated I figured it would at least be good for one run and one photo/video. In reality it was good for about 10 runs and had we owned boogie boards it would have been a right riot.
When Steve saw my crazy idea he was like, ok, this is amazing but remember what you’re working with here. He was torn between admiration at my idea and determination, but a bit horrified at the prospect for a complete fail (and broken body parts). He walked out the door hugging the kids extra hard and saying that he wanted to memorize them as they were – all in one piece.
E couldn’t be persuaded to go down head first even though I tried to make him believe the distribution of body weight would make for a faster slide, but of course R was all about it (he’s too young and foolish to realize he’s not invincible and that adults ARE fallible and can be equally foolish). R got stuck in a divot about halfway down that required me to pull him along but he still loved it. The slide also had the smoothness of a ski mogul course.
Like I said, it was good for about 10 runs at which point I declared it a sort of fail and dismantled the apparatus. Will they even remember this? Moms! We really are in a special category of crazy.
The real. Up close. 