Children's Play Mats

A baby’s environment can greatly enhance his development, even at infancy, according to pediatrician Dr. William Sears. Each of the five senses can promote learning, including sight. In fact, visual stimulation may pose the most significant influence on a baby’s developing nervous system. So it is important that parents choose colors and patterns that encourage growth and create the right blend of comfort and stimulation.

Black-and-White Stripes

• Unlike an adult, a baby’s retinas are not fully developed at birth. Pastel or muted colors are therefore likely to blur until the retina is matured. It is still important, however, for parents to provide babies with visual stimulation that supports brain cell health, vision and learning. Contrasting colors deliver the strongest visual signals to a baby’s brain, helping the brain and eyes to develop more quickly. Those colors that appear most boldly to a baby are black and white, and striped patterns provide the greatest contrast. Blankets, bed sheets and toys that feature black-and-white stripes are ideal for a baby’s bedroom. Books, toys and children’s play mats in contrasting colors of light and dark can also be used for added stimulation.

Bold Colors

• In addition to accessories in black and white, parents should also use bold colors to stimulate a baby’s brain development. Orange is reportedly a color that promotes feelings of optimism, while yellow is believed to stimulate thinking. Similarly, red can evoke enthusiasm, and toys (kids play mat) in these bright hues will help draw a baby’s attention. While bold colors are not recommended for bedroom walls, they can be incorporated into a decorating scheme with accents. Playrooms can also feature bright colors, and one option for parents is to paint one wall in a bold shade of red while keeping the other three more neutral.

Pastels and Neutrals

• Over-stimulation can occur with babies who are excessively exposed to stripes and bright colors. Because rest is necessary for optimal development, bedrooms should provide the right mixture of stimulation and comfort. Pastel wall colors with bright accents can help parents achieve this delicate combination. Blue and green pastels, for example, are often associated with feelings of calm and tranquility. Neutral colors like cream and beige can be used for walls, kids play rugs and carpeting. These colors can then be emboldened with red, yellow and orange border or furniture pieces to provide stimulation when baby is awake.

Preferred Colors

• Dave Munger, a writer for “Cognition Daily,” reports that babies have preferences for certain colors. Although infants cannot distinguish between colors, babies at 2 months of age can normally differentiate between most colors. As such, Munger indicates that blues and purples are usually babies’ favorites, with greens, yellows and reds being less preferred. This may be important when parents select nursery decorating schemes, as preferred colors will draw a baby’s eye, while others may cause a baby to become fussy or cranky.

Our SoftFloor tiles are a great way to protect and stimulate you child in a fun colorful way. We have over 19 different colors and combinations so you can mix and match colors.

Read more: Colors That Stimulate Babies | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_8231934_colors-stimulate-babies.html#ixzz2SFw42eDm

A man’s brain works differently than a woman’s brain. After reading this one sentence, if you’re a woman you are thinking, “Duh.” If you’re a man you’re thinking, “Prove it.”

Although the brain is essentially the same bio machine, how it functions and its physical makeup is very different for each sex.  Men have more gray matter, women have more white matter. White matter is responsible for learning, emotions, processing sensory and relational information while gray matter controls memory, spatial relationships and logic.

Women have 86 percent of their total amount of white matter in the frontal lobes. Men do not have any white matter in the frontal lobes of their brains. Gray matter in men is evenly distributed between the frontal and bilateral lobes, but in women it was found almost completely in the frontal lobe (84 percent).

So, women learn faster with an ability to control their emotions better while communicating how they are the boss in the relationship. While man is in charge of the TV remote and remembers how to get to the store for snacks quickly.

You may be asking yourself, How does this relate to door mats or mats in general? Observe.

Wife, “I hate the color of our kitchen mats.” (Emotion)

Me, “Didn’t we just order those anti fatigue mats?” (Memory)

Wife, “But I think when we refinish the cabinets, it will clash.” (Processing sensory information)

Me, “So maybe we should forget about re-doing the kitchen and stay with what we have.” (Logic)

Wife, “That’s what you said when I had you redo the rubber flooring in the garage and look how great that turned out.”  (Learning) Besides, if you don’t get me those new floor mats, it will be uncomfortable sleeping alone in the bed.” (Processing relational information)

Me, “Why would you be sleeping alone”? Oh, On it. Where’s the phone?” (Spatial relationships)

As you can see, communication between the sexes is possible if you just understand the way each sex communicates.

I recently went camping / back-packing.  Now this was a small trip in comparison to some of my more ambitious ventures in my recent past.  Just a two day hike up into the San Gabriel Mountains here in Southern California.  Now even though it is 90+ degrees where we live, believe it or not it is actually still snowing up in the San Gabriel’s (yes, it does snow in Southern California).

So I stuffed your usually things into my trusty backpack.  I packed in my sleeping bag, inflatable cushion for sleeping, my food and water filtration essentials.  But this time I brought a specially little experiment along with me.  Just to see how it would fare.  That’s right ladies and gents, I brought Mexican blankets up into the snowy mountains of the SoCal.

Now you would not think that this type of material would do so well up in the mountains, and frankly neither did I.  However to my very amazement, I found it to be quite useful!  Not really as a blanket, but as so many other things.  I could not help but thinking of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as I romped through forest with my now trustee Mexican blankets.  It was the equivalent of the Towel in those books.  I used it as a towel, as a napkin, I stuffed it into my sleeping bag cover and bunched it up to use it as a body pillow, when I got stressed I used it as a meditation cushion, and I even used it as a beany of sorts to keep me warm and wick away the sweat as we made our assent.

I have to say that the sheer versatility of this little blanket was marvelous and I will certainly be making them a permanent part of my mountain ensemble.

I know I’ve talked to you about anti fatigue mats several times before. Hopefully you remember all about the benefits such as relief of back pain and pressure on the joints. I’ve talked to you about how safety fatigue mats help prevent work related injuries which can save an employer thousands of dollars. I’ve also pointed out all the benefits you may not realize you’re getting, like less fatigue in your normal life.

Have I taken my own advice? Nope. I’ve been in school for 5 weeks now, and still no sign of a drainage mat or even in areas where drainage is not needed rubber non slip mats. It’s definitely time to get my own little inexpensive 2×3 anti fatigue floor mat so I can stand on it. I have more aches and pains in my hips and back than I’m used to. It’s unbearable!  You know the saying that says “Those who can’t teach”? Well that’s me; with all the information (and access to products) I have, you’d think I’d have optimized my life. I live in a delusional world where bad things don’t happen to me. I like to believe that while muscle stiffness and body aches are something everybody feels, I’m immune. Or if something does happen I pretend it won’t last long; probably hurting myself more. I don’t know why I feel this way, because obviously my lack of a proper anti fatigue flooring is really taking a toll.  Don’t be like me- if you’re on your feet a lot, I really suggest getting proper flooring. It’s one of those things that I personally look at as added, unnecessary, comfort which isn’t worth $13.99. It’s definitely not a luxury. As a necessity, $13.99 is really nothing compared to somewhere between $10,000 and $125,000 for hip replacement surgery.

I am not sure as to how prevalent or obvious it is through these blogs, but I have a very non-stop kind of “over-thinking” brain process.  I constantly question and second and triple guess each and every thought, motive and action.  Although an asset at times; and it certainly has been in the past, it is also been a source of frustration.

With this said I decided to attempt and calm this part of myself in some fashion.  My first attempt was what is commonly known as an isolation tank.  It is a large metal box essentially.  It is filled with about 12” of water that is saturated with 800 lbs of salt to make it incredibly buoyant.  You simply lay in this water and float, and then the fun part.  You close the door to this box and it is completely black. There is no sound, no visuals or stimuli of any kind.  In fact after a few minutes you begin to feel as if you are actually floating and completely weight-less.  Although this is not for everyone, it is quite an experience and I highly recommend it.

However although very fun and interesting, this isolation tank is not exactly the “calming” experience that I really need, nor is it something that is practical to do on a consistent basis.  So I began to dabble into the good ‘ol meditation.  Now, I am in shape and that shape…is round.  So needless to say, I need some comfort to brace between the floor and I.  I tried many things, from a yoga mat, to a bamboo meditation bench and then finally the meditation cushion.

These Zafu and Zabuton meditation cushions were certainly my favorite thus far and are eco-friendly. They made it much easier to “let go” per say, rather than thinking about how hard the ground was.  So although I am a grave novice at this point, I shall see where this little rabbit holes leads and report on my findings down the road.

First impressions are incredibly powerful. The first young man who walks through my doorway asking permission to take my daughter to the church social had best be on point when it comes to manners and appearance. Take into consideration one of the guidelines I have found to clarify my position with hopeful young men on the subject of first impressions.

“I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don’t take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.”

I have several other rules regarding first impressions and young men seeking to date my daughters, most advice concludes with warnings of shovels and large empty plots of land.

But I digress.

First impressions are powerful. If I come to your place of business and the first thing I see is a raggedy, faded, undersized, entrance mats or indoor carpet mats it immediately starts you out at a distinct disadvantage and as you may have surmised, I am not as forgiving as I could be.

Nice, crisp, colorful, logo mats from MatsMatsMats.com can go a long way in developing a fantastic first impression. It shows that you care what we, the consumer, think when we enter your premises for the first or fiftieth time. It shows you want to create a first impression and that you care about the interior of your establishment as well.

Conversely, having rotting, nasty, dirty, slovenly commercial entry mats makes me want a shovel and an empty plot of land. Figuratively speaking, of course.

I am always looking for things to do with my children. Someone once gave me this bit of sage advice, “The hours are long but the years are short.” With a 10, 12 and 14 year old, I have experienced this first hand. As any parent can tell you, it seems like once the little people enter your life, if you blink, they age a year.

I remember growing up in a theatrical family, where we were always putting on homemade plays, skits and sketches. The highlight of the show was always me with my headband pretending to work out on my exercise mat and my older sister Tap Dancing with bottle-cap taps, on a cement floor in our garage.

Tap dancing has always been my favorite form of dance; making noise while you slap your feet on the ground, learning a time step, how to shuffle off to Buffalo. I learned to tap when a local high school needed a little kid to tap for a production of Gypsy. Here was something I could do with my kids.

Getting the tap shoes was an expensive but easy process but getting the right surface on which to tap proved a bit more difficult. It had to be portable, with a hard striking surface yet have some give and traction. After experimenting I came up with two, 6’x8’ plywood floors, covered with a Matlay Dance Floor “skin” from MatsMatsMats.com that I secure with vinyl tape which I also got at MatsMatsMats.com.  Now I have portable, professional looking vinyl dance floor that I can lay down anywhere and give the kidlettes basic tap lessons. My son has had me in for a father/son talent show that had us time stepping in tandem on the flooring. I even had a couple moms ask me where I bought the Marley floor.

All of my kids can now tap better than I, having received lessons at a local dance studio but we all get together and they teach me what they have learned. My wife asked if I could expand the flooring enough to learn ballroom dancing. . .yikes!

I am sure that most of us have had a family pet as a child. I know that I certainly had a series of them. From hamsters to cats, dogs and a few birds scattered here and there – no not literally scattered, and no the cats did not eat them.  So over the past 7 to 8 years my life had been missing something, some special little place deep in the reaches of my soul longed for a little fury thing to add to my little realm of experience and life. So! My roommate and I bought a cat.

Now being as though I was a born again pet owner, and that the last time I was I would not exactly call myself aware of the world or responsibilities. So to my surprise, there are quite a few little and not so little things that one must procure and have done to these little buggers upon purchase. It’s like hidden fees when you buy a car. But I couldn’t say no, so take my money I said. There are just so many different types of pet products.  Get that little fur-ball his shots and throw in those adorable pet beds that inevitably they won’t use because the anti fatigue kitchen mats or papers that I actually need on the kitchen table will be undoubtedly more enticing.  But tack it on, because we need that cat bed.

Then of course you need something for the little guy to eat from. As we all know cats are very finicky and picky when it comes to things like that, and no cat of mine shall be denied. So let’s pick up on that little water and food bowl set shall we. But wait…we don’t want to have kitty food all over the place so definitely going to need a pet placemat to keep it all neat and tidy.

So armed with vaccinations, enough pet furniture to fill the back of my truck and an adorable little fluff of kitten; I finally own an animal after all these years.

MMA has been around for quite some time now, in one form or another. One could even argue that it has been around for hundreds of years. One of the best known; even if not for it’s Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) per say is Ninjistu. A style popularized by – yup you guessed it, Ninjas. See Ninjas were the commandos of their day and they had to go up against a lot of different types of opposition, so they learned their enemies Martial Arts Style so that they could use it against them. Thus the first (maybe) Mixed Martial Arts was born.

No a days the Mixed Martial Arts scene is a bit different. However the main idea stays the same. The combination of various fighting disciplines coming together to allow the fighter to move more quickly, and react more appropriately to the situation and opposition with less flair and useless moves to deal with (i.e. “Return Positions).

With MMA, people inevitably started to fight each other in public forums and thus started to make groups. The most popular of which is the UFC. So now you have thousands of aspiring fighters either learning MMA for self-defense, fitness or for a chance to be in the UFC and fight for the prize in a sense.  This all requires training, and lots of it. Training requires classes, and classes require a good space to teach their students in a safe environment. So that is why we very commonly use, recommend and sell our interlocking martial arts mats and our most popular seamless flooring to MMA and Martial Arts Gyms.

Continuous Vinyl and crosslink foam flooring provides a fantastic area for the students to move and learn without fear of injury from falling, pulls, drops, or throws. We recently provided some seamless flooring to an up-and-coming MMA gym in North Carolina called Female Fighters MMA. In a sport currently dominated by male athletes they are setting the curve in providing a top notch environment and facilities for their students to learn and advance. They use our seamless flooring for their gym for just these reasons. You can see here for yourself, it not only looks great, but performs well!

Seamless Martial Arts Floor and MMA are very synonymous with each other, and if you are in the sport you certainly will see them everywhere you go.