Play Value (from last week)

Don't know why I never finished this one (I started it last week), but I think I know where I was going to go with it.

Last week The Boy got a present from the wonderful people at the treatment center--a new truck! I thought that it was rather nice that when they got a bunch of toys donated for all the kids at the center, they thought of our boy when they saw this one.

Last week he also received a wooden puzzle toy from Aunt M. This is a triangular board with 3 pieces cut out--a plane, a train, and an automobile. Can't find a picture easily so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Looking around the room (today, now), I see a hodgepodge of The Boy's toys and it's so interesting what he plays with and how much use he gets out of the items in his collection.

He has three different walk-behind toys like the one that I mentioned above (one isn't opened yet and we will probably save it for later). They help little ones learn to walk. Does he ever use these toys to push around and practice walking? Yes, but it's not his idea. He much prefers his table or his chair (a hand-me-down from Aunt L.--2 gorgeous child-size upholstered chairs) to push across the floor. The walk-behind toys have other parts to play with; buttons to press and little gears to spin.

He LOVES his Mega-Bloks, which are giant-sized Legos (bigger than Duplo), that Musical Daddy got at a yard sale for $2. He can't build so much yet although he is just learning to take things apart. He likes to hold two pieces and bang them together or crawl around the house with one block in his hand. That way, you know he's coming.

In the bathtub (we still use this on the countertop, by the way), he has stacking cups. He loves these too. He bangs them together and throws them from the tub into the sink. Sometimes he misses and throws them on the floor. With or without water.

Since he loves the stacking cups, I picked up a package of 8 small plastic tumblers from The Dollar Tree. Another success. We played with these together--I built little towers and he would take cups from the tower and wonder why the cups kept appearing, stacked. I also showed him how to knock the towers down. These cups are all over the house; that's a measure of play value.

Think about this, when you buy toys for children--what are they going to do with the toys? What are all of the possibilities (think "outside the box" here)? If the toy is supposed to be for a certain age group, is it for developmental or safety reasons? Certainly The Boy was too young to build anything with the Mega Bloks when Musical Daddy purchased them, but because we could see that they were not unsafe for him, we let him play with the blocks and he discovered his own games.

The Wonderful World of Books and Bathrooms

This morning, The Boy and I went to our local library to hang out and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was storytime! Even though I had tried to sign up for storytime and it was full, we crashed it anyway and had a good time. Some friends were there as well.

The structure of this storytime at the library is pretty good, taking into consideration the attention spans of the audience. It was a wonderful mix of songs, stories, and games. One of the games involved children holding jingle bells (which get washed after every session). The facilitator gave The Boy a plastic toy with bells in it because she saw that he had been chewing on my keys, but apparently he was more interested in the other bells that had been given to our friend sitting next to us and took them away! Fortunately, our little buddy was pretty laid back about the whole thing and I managed to convince The Boy to play with what he had, which included my keys and the plastic jingling toy, and return our friend's bells to her. I don't think that she held a grudge.

Here's a really lousy segue: I wonder when The Boy will start taking books into the bathroom with him. I am pleased to report that we had a multi-faceted success on the potty this morning. We have the Baby Bjorn Little Potty, which was $10. It is small enough for most babies who are old enough to sit up, so that they can put their feet on the floor.

Read the bottom half of this entry to get some insight as to why we started the potty with The Boy. It had nothing to do with the fact that we think our child is so brilliant and so advanced and want to put pressure on him--he gave us some signs, so we're rolling with it. In teacherspeak, we are potty training on the spiral curriculum. That means that the student will cover a concept several times over the course of the learning process, and each time he goes over it, his understanding will broaden. Plus, anything that ends up out of the diaper--even if it is on the floor or on the lawn--is that much better for Mr. Sensitive Skin.

Also, please keep in mind that neither Musical Daddy nor I get any sort of compensation for the products that we mention in our personal blogs. Please. We just have found certain items that work for us and perhaps you may find them to be useful.

I got some of my inspiration, especially right at the beginning, from the Cranky Little Man website. She hasn't updated it in awhile, but her website has a nice little collection of advice for new moms, with breastfeeding advice, product reviews, and honesty about the scary newborn stage.