Sunday, September 23, 2012

Toys

We have a few toys for Benjamin, not a ton, but plenty. I tend to get him a new little toy every time I am out shopping.

Right now his favorite toy is a pink plastic mixing bowl I bought for $.50 at Target's dollar spot. We put blocks in it. We turn it over and use it as a drum. We put it on our heads. On the same trip I also bought him a little red bucket, which gets similar usage. The blocks have also served us well. Stack them, hit them together, put them into their tray so he can dump them out. Similarly, we just broke out some wooden puzzles that were a shower gift. We have a set of four but we only put the one out that has farm animals. He loves to take it apart, and if he is in the mood will take the pieces out as fast as you put them in. He chews on the pieces. He hits the pieces together. He puts the pieces in his bucket. Etc. We keep several cheap board books in his toybox. He has some upstairs that we read to him at bedtime, but he has a bunch of $1 books from Target that stay downstairs. I use them for coasters sometimes. LOL. There are some foam Sesame Street Ones. He likes chewing on them, I like the messages (try hard, be good to your friends, be cheerful). He has a bunch of crayola ones that are pretty simplistic, just counting or colors or shapes. And he has one Disney one. I was really disappointed with the Disney options. I was SHOCKED how sexist and materialist they were! For example, "My Favorite Things" featured Minnie talking about shopping and trying on new shoes. I did not buy any of them, but DH picked up "Mickey's Book of Trucks" (notice the sexism again). Its fine, just a truck on each page. Enough on the books though... Benjamin also likes his rolling toys. The big one is a plastic toy that converts from walker to ride-on that we got for $.50 at a garage sale. He likes all the little doohickeys on it, he likes to pull up on it, and he likes to push it from kneeling position. He also likes the smaller rolling toys - a truck that lights up and sings when you role it, a little car that fits perfectly in his hand, and a cheap plastic dump truck. Rollin', rollin', rollin' cross the carpet.... The only other type of toy in their I believe is little "chew" toys as I call them [teething rings etc] and a variety of rattle type toys.  We also give him things like wooden spoons, plastic plates and spoons, soup ladles, etc to play with. Of course despite all of this he is still constantly reach for the remote, cell phones, or any other piece of "adult" goodies he can get his hands on!!

Tonight we discovered a new game - put the baby INTO his toy box. This box is blue plastic Ikea, its probably 10 inches wide, 10 inches deep, and 14 inches long. He just fits. He was standing up in it today and kind of resting his calves against the sides to keep his balance. Never knew the way to teach a kid to stand was to put him in a toy box....


ETA: A picture of Benjamin standing proud by his "walker" toy:


1 comment:

Allison said...

We have the same walker toy, except in pink (grrr....). N will be using the pink one and I just don't care. It's not like it's a toy that he'll use for a really long time.